Thomas Hardy by Andrew Norman Read Free Book Online Page A

the subsequent birth of a child’. In his opinion, this was ‘too abominable to be tolerated as a central incident from which the action of the story is to move’. 13
    Notwithstanding this setback, the novel was accepted on 6 May 1870 by Tinsley Brothers, on condition that Hardy paid them the sum of £75 –a great deal of money for a struggling architect who possessed only £123 in the entire world. Another condition was that Hardy made some minor alterations and completed the final chapters (of which he had hitherto sent them only a précis). It is likely that these alterations included a toning down of the ‘violation’ scene. The final wording agreed for this scene was that Miss Aldclyffe, when ‘a young girl of seventeen, was cruelly betrayed by her cousin, a wild officer of six and twenty’.
    Hardy’s anxious search for a publisher was finally over. What had motivated him to carry on with his writing in spite of having had so many rejections? Undoubtedly, his creative instincts were nurtured by his having read so much of other people’s work, and it was therefore only natural that now he should want to emulate these other writers by getting his own name into print. If they could leave their mark on the world of English literature, then why could not he?

    On 16 May 1870 Hardy returned to London, where he assisted Blomfield and another architect, Raphael Brandon – an exponent of the English Gothic – and also spent time with Horace Moule who was in the capital at the time. 14 In August he visited Cornwall and was reunited with Emma, with whom he enjoyed a visit to King Arthur’s Castle, Tintagel. The decrepit tower and north aisle of St Juliot church was now deliberately razed to the ground, prior to its rebuilding, and when the foundation stone of the new tower was laid, it was Emma who had the honour of laying it. The pews, the Saxon north door and the chancel screen were all discarded, but, fortunately, not before Hardy had made detailed drawings of them. Crickmay and Hardy did, however, succeed in preserving many of the windows, the altar, the granite font and the Elizabethan altar rails.
    As the relationship between Hardy and Emma progressed from one of ‘acquaintance’ to one of ‘affection’, 15 she found him ‘a perfectly new subject of study and delight, and he found a “mine” in me’. 16
    As a keepsake to ameliorate the pain of their long separations, Emma gave Hardy a lock of her hair. Subsequent visits by him would see the pair talking ‘much of plots, possible scenes, tales [presumably for stories], and poetry and of his [Hardy’s] own work’. 17 Said Emma: ‘After a little time I copied a good deal of manuscript [of Hardy’s] which went to-and-fro by post, and I was very proud and happy doing this, which I did in the privacy of my room, where I read and wrote also the letters [to and from Hardy].’ 18

    On 25 March 1871 Desperate Remedies was duly published, anonymously, in three volumes. The book received excellent reviews in the Athenaeum and in the Morning Post , but it was vilified by the Spectator magazine, which saw it as an ‘idle prying into the ways of wickedness’, and also objected to it being published anonymously. Moule advised Hardy to ignore such criticism and, in an effort to counter it, reviewed Desperate Remedies himself for the Saturday Review . Unfortunately, however, there was a six-month delay before Moule’s article was published.
Under the Greenwood Tree
    Under the Greenwood Tree , written when Hardy was aged 31, was to be his second published novel. In it, he did what many aspiring writers do: he wrote about what he knew best – in this case, his childhood.
    The alternative title to Under the Greenwood Tree was The Mellstock Quire : ‘Mellstock’ being the collective name for the hamlets of Higher and Lower Bockhampton, the village of Stinsford and their surroundings. The ‘Quire’ refers to the choir of Stinsford Church, both instrumental and