Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life - Hardcover

Pite, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 033048186X ISBN 13: 9780330481861

Publisher: Picador, 2006

Synopsis

"The Guarded Life" challenges some of the long-held views of Hardy - did he spend all his early life in preparation for his career as a writer, and did his novels really come a distant second to his poetry in his heart? In his personal life, did his first wife, Emma Hardy, really trick him into marriage and was she the ambitious women her enemies have painted her as being? And what of Florence, his second wife, who has so often been caricatured in her conflicted and passionate feelings for Hardy? By examining the relationships and contexts that shaped Hardy most - the women, the friendships and mentors, the social and family pressures, the career structures and the Dorsetshire landscape - "The Guarded Life" reveals the personality and emotional life of a public figure who has despite his fame remained until now largely obscure.

About this title

About the Author

Ralph Pite teaches English at Cardiff University. He has published a critical study of Hardy (Hardy's Geography, Palgrave, 2002), a book about Dante's influence on Romantic Poetry (The Circle of Our Vision, Oxford University Press,1994), and a biographical account of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Lives of the Great Romantics: Coleridge, Pickering & Chatto, 1997).

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 033048186X
• ISBN 13: 9780330481861
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528