Durham E-Theses Contemporary judgment on the growth of Hardy's reputation as a novelist between 1971 and 1881 Smith, Peter D. How to cite: Smith, Peter D. (1967) Contemporary judgment on the growth of Hardy's reputation as a novelist between 1971 and 1881, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9861/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 PETER D. SMITH MASTER OF LETTERS CANDIDATE 1967 ABSTRACT OF A THESIS ENTITLED "CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENT ON THE GROWTH OF HARDY'S REPUTATION AS A NOVELIST BETWEEN 1871 AND 1881" Thomas Hardy's first eight published novels appeared between 1871 and 1881, and were extensively reviewed by the London news• papers and journals of opinion. The thesis is based mainly upon one hundred and twenty-six such reviews. Comparison of these reviews with the general standards employed in novel-reviewing and with the reception of eight contemporary works reveals the 'ordinariness' of Hardy's early books. His settings may be unusual in some cases, his style slightly bizarre, and some of his characters peculiar, but, unlike Meredith or James, he is not seen as blazing any new trails; unlike George Eliot he is not considered a writer of 'literature'; nor is he regarded as using the novel to convey a view of life, as did Gissing or Samuel Butler. Rather, the reviewers deal with him as they deal with Trollope or William Black, as one who writes fairly straightforwardly about fairly ordinary people and events. It is therefore not surprising to find some opinions that run counter to modern criticism: A Pair of Blue Eyes highly praised, The Trumpet-Major described as his masterpiece, The Return of the Native confusing the reviewers and arousing hostility, and even warm compliments for The Hand of Ethelberta and A Laodicean. Many reviewers were nevertheless perspicacious enough to realize that Hardy has extraordinary gifts: his ability to describe rural life and natural phenomena, his profound under• standing of women's hearts, his skill as a plot-maker.. The reviewers generally admired and encouraged him at this stage of his development, and, in spite of finding the reviews confusing and even painful, Hardy may have had cause to be grateful to them, for they must have helped to create the following that en• abled him to devote himself to his career as a novelist and to • his calling to be a poet. CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENT ON THE GROWTH OF HARDY'S : REPUTATION AS A NOVELIST .. BETWEEN 1871 AND 1881 CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENT ON THE GROWTH OF HARDY'S REPUTATION AS A NOVELIST BETWEEN 1871 AND 1881 A THESIS BY PETER D. SMITH SUBMITTED. IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF .THE DEGREE MASTER OF LETTERS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM 1967 CONTENTS Preface Introduction PART ONE THE CRITICAL CLIMATE 1. Novels and Reviews of 1871 2. Novels and Reviews of 1881 PART TWO THE RECEPTION OF HARDY'S NOVELS 3. Three Novels for Tinsley 4. Two for the Corhhill 5. "Topsyturvification" PART THREE HARDY'S MAJOR CONTEMPORARIES 6. Five Books that Have Survived 7 And Three that Have Not Conclusion V APPENDICES I. Sortie Facts Concerning/Novel Reviewing in 1871 445 II. Two Review Articles 449 III. Excerpts from Reviews, of Far From the. Madding Crowd ' ' 460 IV. Another Thesis on a Similar Topic . 466 BIBLIOGRAPHIES I. Books and Articles 470 II. " Reviews 475 PREFACE The studies of which this thesis is the culmination were begun in October 1963. They, have involved searching and reading the files of Victorian periodicals in many places: the Durham University Library,, the Newcastle Public Library, the Birmingham Reference Library, the Bodleian Library, the Oxford Union Library, the Library of. the University of California at Berkeley, and the British Museum Newspaper Library, Cdlindale. I am indebted to many friends, colleagues and correspon• dents for criticism, advice or assistance, and would like to acknowledge the help of the following: Edmund Blunden, David Carnegie, R. G. Cox, Kenneth Gibson, L. T. Hergerihan, B. W. Jackson, J. D. Jump, John Paterson, and Richard Little Purdy. I am particularly grateful for the warm, encouragement and wise counsel I have received from Professor Roger Sharroek and Professor R. • A. Foakes at every stage during the preparation of this work. It is appropriate that i should acknowledge, my debt to the authorities at McMaster University who both granted me leave of absence so that I might .attend the University of Durham and begin this study, and assisted me with a substantial grant towards the cost of buying photocopies of many of the 246 reviews with which I have worked. VI1 I am glad to refer also to the assistance I received at the Dorset! County Museum, where, on a January day before a roaring fire and with Hardy's serapbook oh my knee, I first sensed the 'excitement of trying to reconstruct the past. The librarians of the following periodicals have given me assistance in my attempts (usually fruitless) to trace the authors of anonymous reviews: Blackwood's, Daily Telegraph (and for the Morning Post), Illustrated London News, John Bull, New Statesman (for the Athenaeum), Observer, Scotsman,, Spectator, Sunday .Times and Times. My final and most heartfelt acknowledgement is to my wife, who has brought home to me the meaning of a phrase which I have often read in other prefaces but which I never before understood - "without whom this work would never have been completed". INTRODUCTION This study of Thomas Hardy's reputation in his own time is based upon one hundred and twenty-six:.- reviews, published in thirty-five London periodicals between April 1, 1871 and July 19, 1882, of his first eight novels. These reviews, a very few comments recorded in The Life of Thomas Hardy,^ and inferences to be drawn from certain events in his career, are practically the only signposts the modern reader has to guide him to an appreciation of how Hardy's contemporaries looked upon his work at this period in his career. The- student may wish it could be otherwise; he may recall the words of Professor George Ford in the preface to .his distinguished study of Dickens:2 The conventional history of an author's reputation •is often based entirely upon a study of reviews. In such a tidy concentration of the evidence there is obvious value, yet the results are sometimes rather dull and even misleading. What follows is based in part upon reviews but also upon diaries, autobiographies, letters, memoirs, and critical essays; but no matter how much he may wish to follow Professor Ford's example, the student who is concerned with the beginnings of 1 F. E. Hardy, The Life of Thomas/ Hardy 1840-192 8, London, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as the Life). 2 Dickens and his Readers, Princeton, 1955. ix Hardy's career will find himself frustrated by. the almost total absence of any reference to the novelist and his work in other people's diaries, autobiographies, letters, memoirs etc. It is an utterly different story from that of Dickens, and the fact must be faced that if this gener• ation is to know anything about what novel-readers of the 1870's thought of Hardy it must, practically speaking, rely almost completely upon what reviewers said about him. There is no question but that Hardy himself was concerned to know what reviewers said about him. References to particu• lar reviews, especially of his early novels, are scattered through the Life; so are indications in the remarks of others that he tried to take seriously whatever suggestions were made to him about his writing. He may have regretted it 3 later, but it is clear that at the time he was anxious to know the reactions of those who read his novels; the Life records how the request for a successor to Far, 'from the Madding Crowd was the means of urging Hardy into the unfortunate course of hurrying forward a further production before he was aware of what there had been of value 3 Robert Graves records a visit to Hardy (in 1920) in the. course of which Hardy made it clear that "he regarded professional critics as parasites, no less noxious than autograph-hunters, wished the world rid of them, and also regretted having listened to them as a young man." There was "another of Hardy's attacks on the critics at breakfast." Goodbye to All That, London, 1929, p. 271 of the 1957 edition. X in his previous one: before learning, that is, not only what had attracted the public, but what was of true and genuine substance on which to build a career as a writer with a real literary message. For mere popularity he cared little .-. but having now to live by the pen ... he 'had to consider popularity.4 The remarkable phrase "before he was aware of what there had been of value in his previous one" gives as vivid an indi^ cation as anything could of Hardy's attitude towards his work at that time.