Hardy's Wessex

This fascinating book tells the story of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. Accompanying a
multi-venue exhibition, it explores Hardy’s life and work.
Internationally-acclaimed writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is best known for his
evocative depictions of the West Country landscape and its people, a region that he called ‘Wessex’. What is less well-known is that this landscape also inspired him in many other
aspects of his life, from campaigning for animal welfare to questioning the way society
viewed women. This publication accompanies a blockbuster, multi-venue exhibition of
the largest collection of Thomas Hardy memorabilia ever to be displayed at once.
Hardy was born in the West Country, a few years after Queen Victoria came to the
throne, and spent most of the rest of his life among its landscapes and people. When
he turned writer, these landscapes and people re-emerged as his ‘partly-real, partlydream
country’ of Wessex, in novels like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding
Crowd and Jude the Obscure.
‘Hardy’s Wessex’ now conjures up a range of mental images: from raging seas on
the coast to haunting ancient monuments, Victorian towns packed with life to peaceful
hillsides grazed by sheep. However, through Hardy’s 87-year life span, the West Country
changed dramatically. Ideas of the role of women, humans’ responsibility to animals,
the realities of war, love and courtship, superstition, social structure, religion and how
people related to the world around them altered fundamentally. Through his stories and
campaigning, Hardy was keen to show not only the rural idyll, but also the tensions and
diffi culties that lay beneath these views.
 
These dramatic landscapes were the lens through which Hardy presented his
worldview to his readership. From the tragedy of a woman saying farewell to her sailorlover
on the end of Portland Bill, to a shepherd losing his flock and facing ultimate ruin
on the chalky hills. The landscapes shape his characters, whose stories in turn convey his
messages of social change to his readers.
This publication will explore the impact that Wessex had on Hardy’s works, and how
living there shaped his views on the often divisive social issues of the period. Uniting
beautiful landscape imagery with a selection of personal items from Hardy’s life, this book
will show you the man behind the literature.