Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 1 ‘oments of ision’ e Life and Work of Thomas Hardy Exhibition and Catalogue by Debra Dearlove, with Contributions by Keith Wilson and Deborah Whiteman, and a Biographical Introduction by Michael Millgate. The Thomas Fisher rare Book LiBrary, UniversiTy oF ToronTo 24 October 2016 – 24 February 2017 Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 2 Catalogue and exhibition by Debra Dearlove with contributions by Keith Wilson and Deborah Whiteman Biographical Introduction by Michael Millgate Editors P.J. Carefoote and Philip Oldfield Exhibition designed and installed by Linda Joy Digital Photography by Paul Armstrong Catalogue designed by Stan Bevington Catalogue printed by Coach House Press Cover illustration, see item 16. Endpapers from item 133. LiBrary and archives canada caTaLogUing in pUBLicaTion omas Fısher Rare Book Library, issuing body, host institution ‘Moments of vision’ : the life and work of omas Hardy / exhibition and catalogue by Debra Dearlove, with contributions by Keith Wilson and Deborah Whiteman, and a biographical introduction by Michael Millgate. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the e omas Fısher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, from October 24, 2016 to February 24, 2017. Includes bibliographical references. isBn 978-0-7727-6120-0 (paperback) 1. omas Fısher Rare Book Library – Exhibitions. 2. Millgate, Michael – Private collections – Ontario – Toronto – Exhibitions. 3. Hardy, omas, 1840–1928 – Bibliography – Exhibitions. 4. Authors, English – 19th century – Biography – Exhibitions. i. Dearlove, Debra, 1959-, author ii. Wilson, Keith (Keith G.), author iii. Whiteman, Deborah, author iv. Millgate, Michael, writer of introduction V. Title. pr4753.T48 2016 823'.8 c2016-905988-X Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 3 Table of Contents Foreword 4 In memory of David J. Holmes Curatorial Introduction 5 (1945-2016) omas Hardy: A Biographical Overview 6 Bookseller, friend, and fellow Hardyan. Early Life 15 Career as a Novelist 22 ‘Wives All’ 36 ‘A Changed Man’: Poetry & Short Stories 44 ‘Hardy on Stage’ 51 Max Gate 58 Later Years 66 ‘Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover’ 73 ‘Wessexmania and Mr. Hardy’ 76 After Hardy: Adaptations & Interpretations 82 Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 4 4 Foreword omas Hardy (1840–1928) is one of the most important and influen- continuing relevance of omas Hardy. e resulting exhibition is a tial writers in English literary history. Universally recognized both as compelling representation of Hardy’s entire oeuvre that appeals to a major novelist and a major poet, Hardy and his work continue to the Hardyan and non-Hardyan alike. generate interest today. ‘Moments of Vision’: e Life and Work of I wish to thank Debra Dearlove for this remarkable exhibition omas Hardy by Debra Dearlove, with contributions by Keith and catalogue. It is also a pleasure and a privilege to acknowledge the Wilson, Deborah Whiteman, and Michael Millgate, is a testament to support of the Friends of the omas Fısher Rare Book Library for Hardy’s enduring genius. It is also a tribute to an expert collector. this exhibition and an anonymous donor for this catalogue. And e basis for this exhibition and accompanying catalogue is the above all, we are most grateful to Jane and Michael Millgate for such superb Millgate omas Hardy Collection, gifted to the Library by an exceptional collection. Jane and Michael Millgate in 2012 and in 2013. e collection was assembled by Michael Millgate over forty-five years. As the editor of Loryl MacDonald the Hardy letters, the definitive Hardy biography, and numerous Interim Director other Hardy-related scholarly works, Professor Millgate, now omas Fısher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, is a pre-eminent Hardy scholar and his collection is reflective of his commitment to Hardy studies. Indeed, prior to its donation, the Millgate Hardy collection was acknowledged as the largest and most comprehensive Hardy collection outside of a public institution. In ‘Moments of Vision’: e Life and Work of omas Hardy, curator Debra Dearlove has created a fascinating exhibition that is as broad in range and rich in content as is the magnificent Millgate Hardy collection. is exhibition includes first editions, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera illustrating Hardy’s profes- sional and personal life. It spans Hardy’s early years, poetry, novels, plays, wives, circle of friends, and contemporaries, as well as posthu- mous recent adaptations of his works. Such a thorough analysis considerably broadens our understanding of the life, work, and Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 5 5 Curatorial Introduction e inspiration for this exhibition was the donation by Professor and from his autobiography, Life and Work. Many of our section titles Michael Millgate (University Professor Emeritus, University of and preliminary quotations are also taken from Hardy, or the work of Toronto) of his magnificent omas Hardy collection, one of the Hardy scholars. With material drawn primarily from the Millgate finest amassed by a private collector, to the omas Fısher Rare Book Collection, the exhibition documents Hardy’s career as a novelist and Library. With this acquisition, along with Professor Millgate’s poet, his personal relationships, and the enduring interest and popu- working papers, the Fısher Library is now a leading Hardy repository. larity of his writings. Formed over a period of nearly fifty years, the collection contains an is exhibition would not have been possible without the assis- exceptional depth and breadth of material, including letters, manu- tance of several people. I am grateful to my co-curator, Deborah scripts, association copies, first editions of all of Hardy’s novels and Whiteman, for her assistance with the selection of material for this collections of verse, serial publications, volumes from Hardy’s own exhibition, and to both her and Professor Keith Wilson for their library, and a significant amount of material relating to his wives, his contributions to the catalogue. I would like to thank the staff at the circle, and his Wessex (Dorset) homeland. Fısher Library: Loryl MacDonald for her support and Foreword to is collection is a remarkable achievement of a scholar-collector, the catalogue; P.J. Carefoote and Philip Oldfield for their editorial displaying the knowledge of a scholar combined with the astuteness assistance; and Linda Joy for her innovative mounting of the exhibi- of a sophisticated collector. Professor Millgate’s contributions over tion. e superb imaging for both the catalogue and the exhibition is his forty-five year career as a Hardy scholar are unparalleled. His the result of the careful work of Maureen Morin and Paul Armstrong extensive critical and editorial work on Hardy includes, among much of the UTL staff. I would like to thank the people at various else, omas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist (1971), the eight-volume institutions who provided images, particularly Helen Gibson and Collected Letters of omas Hardy (co-edited by Richard L. Purdy and George Wickham at the Dorset County Museum. I appreciate the Keith Wilson), and omas Hardy: A Biography Revisited (2004), assistance of Halina Pashkievich and Marie Korey throughout this regarded as the most authoritative life of Hardy. As Professor Keith process. anks also to Stan Bevington of Coach House Press for Wilson has noted in his introduction to omas Hardy Reappraised: his care with the design and printing of the catalogue. My deepest Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate (2006), ‘Michael Millgate has thanks go to my partner, David Mason, for the support, patience, produced scholarship of a transformative kind, providing the firm and understanding he has shown through all the demands this exhi- historical and biographical ground on which his fellow Hardy bition placed on my time and attention. Fınally, my gratitude to scholars now stand at the same time as making his findings accessible Michael Millgate for his support, editorial advice, and friendship is to the worldwide community of non-academic Hardy enthusiasts’. immeasurable. It has been both a privilege and a joy to work with his e exhibition’s title, Moments of Vision: e Life and Work of extraordinary omas Hardy collection. omas Hardy, reflects both the scope of the collection and the range of Professor Millgate’s scholarly work. ‘Moments of Vision’, which is Debra Dearlove the title of one of Hardy’s poems and of a volume of verse published in 1917, is also the phrase that Virginia Woolf believed ‘exactly describes those passages of astonishing beauty and force which are to be found in every book that he wrote’. With this in mind, we have allowed Hardy himself to speak by quoting selections from his letters Hardy g17_Layout 1 16-10-20 5:05 PM Page 6 6 an early age and occasionally went with his father to provide music at omas Hardy: A Biographical Overview local dances and parties. Music remained important to him throughout his life and his particular attachment to the music and omas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in the Dorset hamlet of rituals of the Church of England was undiminished by his eventual Higher Bockhampton, located in the parish of Stinsford just to the agnosticism. north-east of Dorchester, the county town. He was his parents’ first Hardy had no regular schooling until September 1848, when he child, arriving rather more than six months after their marriage on 22 presented himself early on the opening day of the new National (i.e., December 1839. His father, omas Hardy senior, was a stonemason Church of England) school in Lower Bockhampton. He had already and jobbing builder whose own father, yet another omas Hardy, attracted the affectionate attentions of the school’s principal founder, had at the turn of the century built the family cottage in an isolated Julia Augusta Martin, wife of the owner of Kingston Maurward situation at the end of the hamlet’s single street and on the very edge House and effectively (though not technically) lady of the manor.