Editing Thomas Hardy (section)

==Novels==
[[File:Thomas Hardy's Cottage, Bockhampton, Dorset.jpg|thumb|Thomas Hardy's [[Thomas Hardy's Cottage|birthplace and cottage]] at Higher Bockhampton, where ''[[Under the Greenwood Tree]]'' and ''[[Far from the Madding Crowd]]'' were written]]
[[File:Thomas Hardy Locations, Tess of the Durbervilles (1) - geograph.org.uk - 707277.jpg|thumb|View of the [[River Frome, Dorset|River Frome]] from the bridge at [[Lower Bockhampton]]. In ''[[Tess of the d'Urbervilles]]'' the lowland vale of the river is described as the Vale of the Great Dairies, in comparison to Tess's home, the fertile [[Vale of Blackmore]], which is the Vale of Little Dairies.]]

Hardy's first novel, ''[[The Poor Man and the Lady]]'', finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher. He then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and novelist [[George Meredith]], who felt that ''The Poor Man and the Lady'' would be too politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future. So Hardy followed his advice and he did not try further to publish it. He subsequently destroyed the manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work.<ref name="Bullen2013">{{cite book|author=J. B. Bullen|title=Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8aX0AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT143|date=2013|publisher=Frances Lincoln|isbn=978-1-78101-122-5|page=143}}</ref> In his recollections in ''Life and Work'', Hardy described the book as "socialistic, not to say revolutionary; yet not argumentatively so."<ref>{{cite book |last=Widdowson |first=Peter |title=Thomas Hardy |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=27}}</ref>

After he abandoned his first novel, Hardy wrote two new ones that he hoped would have more commercial appeal, ''[[Desperate Remedies]]'' (1871) and ''[[Under the Greenwood Tree]]'' (1872), both of which were published anonymously; it was while working on the latter that he met Emma Gifford, who would become his wife.<ref name="Bullen2013"/> In 1873 ''[[A Pair of Blue Eyes]]'', a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of Emma, was published under his own name. A plot device popularised by [[Charles Dickens]], the term "[[cliffhanger]]" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of ''A Pair of Blue Eyes'' (published in ''[[William Tinsley (publisher)|Tinsley's Magazine]]'' between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.<ref name="Hardy2013">{{cite book|author=Thomas Hardy|title=Delphi Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1EbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT570|date= 2013|publisher=Delphi Classics|isbn=978-1-908909-17-6|pages=570–|access-date=16 October 2016|archive-date=19 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819150410/https://books.google.com/books?id=N1EbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT570|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Emily Nussbaum. {{cite magazine |date=10 July 2019 |title=The curious staying power of the cliffhanger. |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/30/tune-in-next-week |magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref> Elements of Hardy's fiction reflect the influence of the commercially successful sensation fiction of the 1860s, particularly the legal complications in novels such as ''Desperate Remedies'' (1871), ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874) and ''Two on a Tower'' (1882).<ref>Trish Ferguson, ''Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions'', Edinburgh University Press, 2013.</ref>

In ''[[Far from the Madding Crowd]]'', Hardy first introduced the idea of calling the region in the west of England, where his novels are set, [[Thomas Hardy's Wessex|Wessex]]. Wessex had been the name of an early [[Saxon]] kingdom, in approximately the same part of England. ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next 25 years, Hardy produced 10 more novels.

Subsequently, Hardy moved from London to [[Yeovil]], and then to [[Sturminster Newton]], where he wrote ''[[The Hand of Ethelberta]]'' (1876) and ''[[The Return of the Native]]'' (1878).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2013/06/curiosities-of-sturminster-newton/|title=Curiosities of Sturminster Newton – Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine|website=dorsetlife.co.uk|access-date=9 November 2017|archive-date=10 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110061814/http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2013/06/curiosities-of-sturminster-newton/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1880, Hardy published his only historical novel, ''[[The Trumpet-Major]]''. The next year, in 1881, ''[[A Laodicean]]'' was published. A further move to Wimborne saw Hardy write ''[[Two on a Tower]]'', published in 1882, a romance story set in the world of astronomy. Then in 1885, they moved for the last time, to [[Max Gate]], a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote ''[[The Mayor of Casterbridge]]'' (1886), ''[[The Woodlanders]]'' (1887) and ''[[Tess of the d'Urbervilles]]'' (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman", and initially it was refused publication. Its subtitle, ''A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented'', was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes.
[[File:Thomas Hardy Locations, Return of the Native - geograph.org.uk - 786542.jpg|thumb|A major location of ''[[The Return of the Native]]'' as part of Hardy's fictional [[Egdon Heath]]]]

''[[Jude the Obscure]]'', published in 1895, was the last novel written by Hardy. It was met with an even stronger negative response from the Victorian public because of its controversial treatment of sex, religion and marriage. Its apparent attack on the institution of marriage caused strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that ''Jude the Obscure'' would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and [[Walsham How]], the [[Bishop of Wakefield (diocese)|Bishop of Wakefield]], is reputed to have burnt his copy.<ref name="BBC200803"/> In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".<ref>{{cite book |title= Jude the Obscure |last= Hardy |first= Thomas |year= 1998 |publisher= Penguin Classics |isbn= 0-14-043538-7 |page= 466 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=txZevBW0iX0C |access-date= 16 October 2016 |archive-date= 15 September 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220915014720/https://books.google.com/books?id=txZevBW0iX0C |url-status= live }}</ref> Despite this, Hardy had become a celebrity by the 1900s, but some argue that he gave up writing novels because of the criticism of both ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'' and ''Jude the Obscure''.<ref name="English Literature 2000">"Thomas Hardy", ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'', 7th edition, vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000, p.1916.</ref> However, in a March 1928 piece in the ''[[The Bookman (New York City)|Bookman]]'' that posthumously printed interviews with Hardy, he is quoted as saying that, in addition to the negative publicity, he chose to stop writing novels because "I never cared very much about writing novels" and "I had written quite enough novels."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_bookman-a-review-of-books-and-life_1928-03_67_1/page/4/mode/1up?view=theater|title=Talks with Thomas Hardy|date= March 1928|website= |publisher= Bookman Publishing Co.|access-date=14 December 2024}}</ref> 

''[[The Well-Beloved]]'', first serialised in 1892 and written before ''Jude the Obscure'', was the last of Hardy's fourteen novels to be published, in 1897.