Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses

(Paperback)

Available Formats

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER

'He understands only the women he invents the others not at all'
Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women

In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardys life through the eyes of the women who made him mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working womens lives in the nineteenth century.

Hardy Women is the story of how the magnificent fictional women he invented would not have been possible without the hardship and hardiness of the real ones who shaped his passions and his imagination. It is only through understanding and witnessing these hardy women that we can truly enter the heart of this great novelist and poet.

Reviews

EARLY PRAISE FOR HARDY WOMEN

Absorbing a treat for Hardy fans and unhappy wives

The Times

Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy created some of literatures most enduring female characters but it is the real women who shaped the life of the tortured genius that a book vividly reanimates

Independent

'Magnificent a masterful storyteller and meticulous researcher, Byrne shows us how the women in Hardy's work are based on the women in his life. But she does so with the delicacy of a hummingbird, darting from point to point, suggesting but never concluding'

Washington Post

'By turns infuriating and inspiring, but always fascinating, this page-turner of a book offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of Victorian Britains most famous writers'

Gareth Russell, author of The Palace

A fascinating re-examination of the life of Thomas Hardy through the eyes of the women who profoundly influenced him-his mother, his sisters, girlfriends, wives and muses. Drawing on access to some neverbefore-seen passages in Hardy's journals, she shows that it is through these hardy women that we can truly appreciate his much-loved works

The Bookseller, Editors Choice

Author Bio

Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Theatre, was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. Her second book, Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson , the tale of the scandalous star of the 18th-century stage, literature and high-society, was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Her most recent book is Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. The story of Evelyn Waugh's friendship with the extraordinary aristocratic family who inspired Brideshead Revisited, it was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. A regular contributor to the 'Times Literary Supplement', she lives in Warwickshire with her two young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.