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The Chosen
One Wednesday morning in November 1912, Thomas Hardy, an old man in ragged trousers, entombed by paper and increasingly estranged from his wife, Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she has gone.
The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words, leading Hardy to wonder whether all husbands and wives ended up as enemies to each other. He, his family and Florence Dugdale, the much younger woman with whom he had been in a relationship, all assumed that he would be happy and relieved to be set free. But he is left shattered by the loss.
Hardy finds a set of secret diaries Emma kept about their life together and discovers what Emma had truly felt—that he had been cold, remote and incapable of ordinary human affection and had kept her childless, a virtual prisoner for 40 years. Why had they ever married?
He is consumed by something worse than grief, an absence without form or meaning, a chaos in which certainties have been obliterated. He must re-evaluate himself and reimagine his unhappy wife as she was when they first met.
Hardy's pained reflections on the choices he has made—and must now make—form a unique combination of love story and ghost story, by turns tender, surprising, comic and true. Based on meticulous research, The Chosen—the extraordinary new novel by Elizabeth Lowry—hauntingly searches the unknowable spaces between man and wife, memory and grief, life and art.
The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words, leading Hardy to wonder whether all husbands and wives ended up as enemies to each other. He, his family and Florence Dugdale, the much younger woman with whom he had been in a relationship, all assumed that he would be happy and relieved to be set free. But he is left shattered by the loss.
Hardy finds a set of secret diaries Emma kept about their life together and discovers what Emma had truly felt—that he had been cold, remote and incapable of ordinary human affection and had kept her childless, a virtual prisoner for 40 years. Why had they ever married?
He is consumed by something worse than grief, an absence without form or meaning, a chaos in which certainties have been obliterated. He must re-evaluate himself and reimagine his unhappy wife as she was when they first met.
Hardy's pained reflections on the choices he has made—and must now make—form a unique combination of love story and ghost story, by turns tender, surprising, comic and true. Based on meticulous research, The Chosen—the extraordinary new novel by Elizabeth Lowry—hauntingly searches the unknowable spaces between man and wife, memory and grief, life and art.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2022
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931 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
April 18, 2023
A fantastic, powerful read.
May 3, 2023
“What’s lost when your idea of the other dies? He knows the answer: only the entire world.” Elizabeth Lowry’s utterly immersive third novel, currently on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, examines Thomas Hardy’s relationship with his first wife, Emma Gifford. The main storyline is set in November–December 1912 and opens on the morning of Emma’s death at Max Gate, their Dorchester home of 27 years. The couple had long been estranged and effectively lived separate lives on different floors of the house, but instantly Hardy is struck with pangs of grief – and remorse for how he had treated Emma. (He would pour these emotions out into some of his most famous poems.)
That guilt is only compounded by what he finds in her desk: her short memoir, Some Recollections, with an account of their first meeting in Cornwall; and her journals going back two decades, wherein she is brutally honest about her husband’s failings and pretensions. “I expect nothing from him now & that is just as well – neither gratitude nor attention, love, nor justice. He belongs to the public & all my years of devotion count for nothing.” She describes him as little better than a jailor, and blames him for their lifelong childlessness.
It’s an exercise in self-flagellation, yet as weeks crawl by after her funeral, Hardy continues to obsessively read Emma’s “catalogue of her grievances.” In the fog of grief, he relives scenes his late wife documented – especially the composition and controversial publication of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Emma hoped to be his amanuensis and so share in the thrill of creation, but he nipped a potential reunion in the bud. Lowry intercuts these flashbacks with the central narrative in a way that makes Hardy feel like a bumbling old man; he has trouble returning to reality afterwards, and his sisters and the servants are concerned for him.
Hardy was that stereotypical figure: the hapless man who needs women around to do everything for him. Luckily, he’s surrounded by an abundance of strong female characters: his sister Kate, who takes temporary control of the household; his secretary, Florence Dugdale, who had been his platonic companion and before long became his second wife; even Emma’s money-grubbing niece, Lilian, who descends to mine her aunt’s wardrobe.
I particularly enjoyed Hardy’s literary discussions with Edmund Gosse, who urged him to temper the bleakness of his plots, and the stranger-than-fiction incident of a Chinese man visiting Hardy at home and telling him his own story of neglecting his wife and repenting his treatment of her after her death.
For anyone who’s read and loved Hardy’s major works, or visited his homes, this feels absolutely true to his life story, and so evocative of the places involved. I could picture every locale, from Stinsford churchyard to Emma’s attic bedroom. It was perfect reading for my short break in Dorset earlier in the month and brought back memories of the Hardy tourism I did at the end of my study abroad year in 2004. Although Hardy’s written words permeate the book, I was impressed to learn that Lowry invented all of Emma’s journal entries, based on feelings she had expressed in letters.
But there is something universal, of course, about a tale of waning romance, unexpected loss, and regret for all that is left undone. This is such a beautifully understated novel, perfectly convincing for the period but also timeless. It’s one to shelve alongside Winter by Christopher Nicholson, another favourite of mine about Hardy’s later life.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
That guilt is only compounded by what he finds in her desk: her short memoir, Some Recollections, with an account of their first meeting in Cornwall; and her journals going back two decades, wherein she is brutally honest about her husband’s failings and pretensions. “I expect nothing from him now & that is just as well – neither gratitude nor attention, love, nor justice. He belongs to the public & all my years of devotion count for nothing.” She describes him as little better than a jailor, and blames him for their lifelong childlessness.
It’s an exercise in self-flagellation, yet as weeks crawl by after her funeral, Hardy continues to obsessively read Emma’s “catalogue of her grievances.” In the fog of grief, he relives scenes his late wife documented – especially the composition and controversial publication of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Emma hoped to be his amanuensis and so share in the thrill of creation, but he nipped a potential reunion in the bud. Lowry intercuts these flashbacks with the central narrative in a way that makes Hardy feel like a bumbling old man; he has trouble returning to reality afterwards, and his sisters and the servants are concerned for him.
Hardy was that stereotypical figure: the hapless man who needs women around to do everything for him. Luckily, he’s surrounded by an abundance of strong female characters: his sister Kate, who takes temporary control of the household; his secretary, Florence Dugdale, who had been his platonic companion and before long became his second wife; even Emma’s money-grubbing niece, Lilian, who descends to mine her aunt’s wardrobe.
I particularly enjoyed Hardy’s literary discussions with Edmund Gosse, who urged him to temper the bleakness of his plots, and the stranger-than-fiction incident of a Chinese man visiting Hardy at home and telling him his own story of neglecting his wife and repenting his treatment of her after her death.
For anyone who’s read and loved Hardy’s major works, or visited his homes, this feels absolutely true to his life story, and so evocative of the places involved. I could picture every locale, from Stinsford churchyard to Emma’s attic bedroom. It was perfect reading for my short break in Dorset earlier in the month and brought back memories of the Hardy tourism I did at the end of my study abroad year in 2004. Although Hardy’s written words permeate the book, I was impressed to learn that Lowry invented all of Emma’s journal entries, based on feelings she had expressed in letters.
But there is something universal, of course, about a tale of waning romance, unexpected loss, and regret for all that is left undone. This is such a beautifully understated novel, perfectly convincing for the period but also timeless. It’s one to shelve alongside Winter by Christopher Nicholson, another favourite of mine about Hardy’s later life.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
May 19, 2023
The Chosen is one of the books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. It gives the reader an insight into Thomas Hardy the husband, not just the renowned author. It has to be said, he comes up wanting.
Emma once assisted Hardy in his writing – in fact, the author shows her contributing to the plot of Tess of the D’Urbevilles – but Emma’s role as his helper has gradually dwindled and been supplanted by a far younger woman, Florence Dugdale (whom Hardy later married). This along with Hardy’s rather offhand response to Emma’s own literary ambitions, and their childless state, has only fuelled her sense of resentment and feeling of emptiness. Their marriage has become stale. Although sharing the same house, they live separate lives only coming together at the dinner table, and sometimes not even then. In Emma’s own words, they have become ‘bricked up alive’ in a ‘make-believe marriage’.
Emma pours out her frustration, anger and sense of injustice in her diaries. ‘I am an irrelevance, a clog on his real life. He forgets that I believed in his gift when no one else did, that I saw from the very first what he might be.’ She rails at his neglect of her, noting ruefully that ‘he belongs to the public and all my years of devotion count for nothing.’ (Hardy destroyed Emma’s diaries after her death so the author has recreated them using a combination of her own imagination and Emma’s surviving letters, as well as the manuscript of her memoir.)
As the book progresses, we discover what happened (or didn’t happen) over the years to leave them in this state of virtual estrangement as well as the nature of their final exchange of words the night befome Emma’s death.
Hardy initially comes across as self-absorbed, totally engrossed in the process of writing his novels and poetry and unable to, or unwilling to, read the obvious signs of Emma’s unhappiness. It seems baffling that someone so skilful at communicating love and passion in his writing, should fail so lamentably when it comes to communicating with his wife. As Emma notes in her diary, ‘T. understands only the women he invents – the others not at all.’
However, it’s impossible not to be moved by Hardy’s utter distress at her death, his sense of regret and guilt, even if it does come many years too late. ‘This isn’t the beginning of grief but something worse, an absence without form or meaning, a chaos in which everything that was once certain is cancelled. Wherever she’s to be found now, it isn’t here.’ It’s only the stalwart Kate, Hardy’s sister, who gets him through the dark days.
So immersed did I become in the lives of Hardy and Emma that I moved between wanting to give them both a hug or a good shake and say, ‘For goodness sake, talk to each other!’. That and grabbing another tissue from the box.
The Chosen is a beautifully written portrait of a marriage that could have been so much happier if only the flame of passion had remained alight; instead, it was allowed to flicker and die. The book’s wistful, melancholic tone is perhaps best summed up by Hardy’s reflection, ‘Too late, he sees it all.’
Emma once assisted Hardy in his writing – in fact, the author shows her contributing to the plot of Tess of the D’Urbevilles – but Emma’s role as his helper has gradually dwindled and been supplanted by a far younger woman, Florence Dugdale (whom Hardy later married). This along with Hardy’s rather offhand response to Emma’s own literary ambitions, and their childless state, has only fuelled her sense of resentment and feeling of emptiness. Their marriage has become stale. Although sharing the same house, they live separate lives only coming together at the dinner table, and sometimes not even then. In Emma’s own words, they have become ‘bricked up alive’ in a ‘make-believe marriage’.
Emma pours out her frustration, anger and sense of injustice in her diaries. ‘I am an irrelevance, a clog on his real life. He forgets that I believed in his gift when no one else did, that I saw from the very first what he might be.’ She rails at his neglect of her, noting ruefully that ‘he belongs to the public and all my years of devotion count for nothing.’ (Hardy destroyed Emma’s diaries after her death so the author has recreated them using a combination of her own imagination and Emma’s surviving letters, as well as the manuscript of her memoir.)
As the book progresses, we discover what happened (or didn’t happen) over the years to leave them in this state of virtual estrangement as well as the nature of their final exchange of words the night befome Emma’s death.
Hardy initially comes across as self-absorbed, totally engrossed in the process of writing his novels and poetry and unable to, or unwilling to, read the obvious signs of Emma’s unhappiness. It seems baffling that someone so skilful at communicating love and passion in his writing, should fail so lamentably when it comes to communicating with his wife. As Emma notes in her diary, ‘T. understands only the women he invents – the others not at all.’
However, it’s impossible not to be moved by Hardy’s utter distress at her death, his sense of regret and guilt, even if it does come many years too late. ‘This isn’t the beginning of grief but something worse, an absence without form or meaning, a chaos in which everything that was once certain is cancelled. Wherever she’s to be found now, it isn’t here.’ It’s only the stalwart Kate, Hardy’s sister, who gets him through the dark days.
So immersed did I become in the lives of Hardy and Emma that I moved between wanting to give them both a hug or a good shake and say, ‘For goodness sake, talk to each other!’. That and grabbing another tissue from the box.
The Chosen is a beautifully written portrait of a marriage that could have been so much happier if only the flame of passion had remained alight; instead, it was allowed to flicker and die. The book’s wistful, melancholic tone is perhaps best summed up by Hardy’s reflection, ‘Too late, he sees it all.’
August 10, 2022
This book. THIS BOOK. I'm going to be thinking about it for a long while. Lowry has perfectly captured Hardy and Emma's relationship, and the breakdown of their marriage, and how Hardy only realised what he had lost in Emma when it was too late, when she was dead. It's a familiar tale to me, as a Hardy obsessive, but Lowry made it new, haunting, and emotional. This book understands grief and it understands love, and specifically the complexities of love. This may be in the running for one of the best books I've read this year.
May 18, 2023
3.5 rounded up
Set predominantly at Max Gate, the home of Thomas Hardy, this novel explores the relationship between Hardy and his wife Emma in the weeks after her death with flashbacks to earlier times, in particular the years around the writing of Tess. This is a novel about grief and regret. About relationships and literature.
There was a lot to love about this book. The research is sound and Lowry goes to great lengths to capture the times and the words and thoughts of the characters albeit in a fictional telling. My problem was that it dragged on a little and I became increasingly frustrated with the Hardy's whining as he learnt, through Emma's diaries, that his perspective of his marriage was so different from hers. His exploitation of the women around him to boost his ego, and care for him became somewhat tiresome despite some lovely prose, and I grew increasingly angry as he quickly moved into a new relationship with Florence, who, it seems, he really just needed as a housekeeper and nursemaid.
Overall a good read which I would recommend but cannot help but think it could have been a tad shorter.
Set predominantly at Max Gate, the home of Thomas Hardy, this novel explores the relationship between Hardy and his wife Emma in the weeks after her death with flashbacks to earlier times, in particular the years around the writing of Tess. This is a novel about grief and regret. About relationships and literature.
There was a lot to love about this book. The research is sound and Lowry goes to great lengths to capture the times and the words and thoughts of the characters albeit in a fictional telling. My problem was that it dragged on a little and I became increasingly frustrated with the Hardy's whining as he learnt, through Emma's diaries, that his perspective of his marriage was so different from hers. His exploitation of the women around him to boost his ego, and care for him became somewhat tiresome despite some lovely prose, and I grew increasingly angry as he quickly moved into a new relationship with Florence, who, it seems, he really just needed as a housekeeper and nursemaid.
Overall a good read which I would recommend but cannot help but think it could have been a tad shorter.
May 15, 2022
I was really looking forward to this book but unfortunately the writing didn't appeal to me and I ended up disliking both Thomas Hardy and his wife. In the acknowledgements EL explains what she set out to achieve with this book and that made sense but didn't change my overall opinion of the book.
May 21, 2022
I've long been fascinated to understand how Thomas Hardy came to write some of the greatest love poems in English inspired by the death of his wife whom he'd cruelly neglected. This beautiful book explains how. Surely candidate for the Booker Prize except that books about writers and writers are infra dig.
April 21, 2022
Having lived near to where Thomas and Emma met, and being an Emma Hardy myself, of course I had to pick up this read.
This provides such vivid and descriptive pose in a subject that's clearly well researched.
I felt that I was immersed into that time period and absorbed every word. Its interesting how Emma used words, and perhaps they were more powerful than has ever been given credit for- more so for Tom.
A compelling read.
This provides such vivid and descriptive pose in a subject that's clearly well researched.
I felt that I was immersed into that time period and absorbed every word. Its interesting how Emma used words, and perhaps they were more powerful than has ever been given credit for- more so for Tom.
A compelling read.
April 19, 2023
Everything has been written that can be about the death of the wife of Thomas Hardy, Emma, his first wife. This novel is a fictionalised account of Hardy's reaction to his first wife's death, which attempts to set the record straight and explain the ensuing epiphany in his life. Hardy soon regrets the way that he treated his wife, and coming across her diaries realises her true feelings about him and their marriage.
Hardy can barely exist in the present and it's hard not to get exasperated with his character, as do some of the other fictional people in the story. Much of Hardy's work doesn't have happy, resolved endings, and don't expect one from this novel .
Hardy can barely exist in the present and it's hard not to get exasperated with his character, as do some of the other fictional people in the story. Much of Hardy's work doesn't have happy, resolved endings, and don't expect one from this novel .
February 26, 2023
I was drawn to this novel because of my fascination for the 1912-13 poems by Thomas Hardy about his late wife, Emma, as well as my love of the novel 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles.'
And Elizabeth Lowry's novel 'The Chosen' was everything and more that I had hoped for. It is a wonderfully sensitive and beautifully written story of those difficult days after Emma had died. There are expertly crafted forays back into the past, narrating moments in the marriage and how intricately tied it seemed to be to the writing of 'Tess'.
A moving novel that tells a powerful account of love-too-late, grief, and, for Emma, the terrible coldness of marriage to a man who could write about love but was not able to extend that understanding of human emotion into his own marriage.
And Elizabeth Lowry's novel 'The Chosen' was everything and more that I had hoped for. It is a wonderfully sensitive and beautifully written story of those difficult days after Emma had died. There are expertly crafted forays back into the past, narrating moments in the marriage and how intricately tied it seemed to be to the writing of 'Tess'.
A moving novel that tells a powerful account of love-too-late, grief, and, for Emma, the terrible coldness of marriage to a man who could write about love but was not able to extend that understanding of human emotion into his own marriage.
February 12, 2023
DNF, Hardy is such an appaling man. And yet he is surprised to read -after his wife dies & he found her diaries- what his wife really thought about him. Somewhere halfway the book I couldn't take it anymore. Why waste time reading a book whose main character you despise?
August 20, 2023
a bit mid. found it really hard to follow as it kept jumping all over the place. i think i should’ve read hardy’s ‘poems of 1912-1913’ before reading the book
October 23, 2023
3.5/5 stars
May 13, 2023
she ate
August 2, 2022
Even if you know only a little about Thomas Hardy and his wife Emma you will love this novel. The author has spent a lot of time in Max Gate and the atmosphere of the place is palpable. Despite loving Hardy's writing I come away from this really not liking him or Emma very much. A really enjoyable read.
March 11, 2023
When studying A-Level English Literature, I remember learning about Thomas Hardy’s troubled marriage to Emma Gifford; how they met on a chance encounter at St. Juliot in Cornwall, grew estranged from one another, only for Hardy to rediscover his love for Emma in some of the finest poetry of The Twentieth Century. ‘The Voice’ and ‘Beeny Cliff’ spring lovingly to mind. This novel, ‘The Chosen’, contends with this arc in Hardy’s long life, focused on the author’s reaction to Emma’s death in November 1912, and the deep suffering recorded in Emma’s black-covered diaries that haunt Hardy with all the intensity of Marley’s Ghost. Flashing back to 1889-1890 when Hardy was deep in the fevered creation of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’, the novel proposes that Hardy expended all his sexual energy into his writing, leaving nothing in that side of the emotional ledger for Emma, thus leaving her childless and denied all human warmth from her husband. Considering how Tess Durbeyfield was a literary pin-up for Hardy, this novel must have been particularly galling for Emma, who felt sidelined by her famous husband.
Essentially, Lowry’s position in this novel seems to be that writers are difficult and rather odd people, who are totally unsuited to marital relationships. An added complexity in this drama is the love triangle dimension of Florence Dugdale, who will become Hardy’s second wife. In contrast to Emma, who grows to resent Hardy’s written output, Florence encourages Hardy to start writing again. However, when Florence arrives at Hardy’s famous house of Max Gate, expecting to be the writer’s main focus, she finds him preoccupied with memories and ghosts of Emma.
This factually based piece of fiction deserves its plaudits from the doyenne of historical fiction, Hilary Mantel. The text is beautifully woven, vividly portraying Max Gate and the neighbouring places of Dorchester, Higher Bockhampton and Stinsford. My only criticism would be it took a little too long to reach its conclusion, which is highly predictable. That said, Robert Louis Stevenson proclaimed famously that it is better to travel than arrive; ‘The Chosen’ provides a stimulating and joyful journey amid all the brooding melancholia.
Essentially, Lowry’s position in this novel seems to be that writers are difficult and rather odd people, who are totally unsuited to marital relationships. An added complexity in this drama is the love triangle dimension of Florence Dugdale, who will become Hardy’s second wife. In contrast to Emma, who grows to resent Hardy’s written output, Florence encourages Hardy to start writing again. However, when Florence arrives at Hardy’s famous house of Max Gate, expecting to be the writer’s main focus, she finds him preoccupied with memories and ghosts of Emma.
This factually based piece of fiction deserves its plaudits from the doyenne of historical fiction, Hilary Mantel. The text is beautifully woven, vividly portraying Max Gate and the neighbouring places of Dorchester, Higher Bockhampton and Stinsford. My only criticism would be it took a little too long to reach its conclusion, which is highly predictable. That said, Robert Louis Stevenson proclaimed famously that it is better to travel than arrive; ‘The Chosen’ provides a stimulating and joyful journey amid all the brooding melancholia.
April 29, 2023
I ventured into this novel expecting that it would be valuable in terms of providing Hardy's readers with a closer look at his family and home life, perhaps unveiling the source of some of the inspiration for his most famous works. Instead, I think this books works even as a standalone novel to a reader unfamiliar with the details of Hardy's major works. I read this in a sitting and am very glad I did.
Lowry's prose is really beautiful, which helps. However, it is also the insight she brings into marriage, family, and aging which makes this a valuable reading experience. While not particularly earth-shattering, the novel deftly handles heavy subject matter in a way which does force the reader to pause, take stock of their own lives, and look to the future to see what kind of existence they would want to lead. The novel sparks self-reflection and inspires self-knowledge, and I can only imagine that for older audiences it would hold more significance as an exploration of how memory and time become warped in old age.
It also happens to be an interesting look into the life of a famous writer and can thus be read purely from a biographical perspective.
Lowry's prose is really beautiful, which helps. However, it is also the insight she brings into marriage, family, and aging which makes this a valuable reading experience. While not particularly earth-shattering, the novel deftly handles heavy subject matter in a way which does force the reader to pause, take stock of their own lives, and look to the future to see what kind of existence they would want to lead. The novel sparks self-reflection and inspires self-knowledge, and I can only imagine that for older audiences it would hold more significance as an exploration of how memory and time become warped in old age.
It also happens to be an interesting look into the life of a famous writer and can thus be read purely from a biographical perspective.
December 16, 2023
As a stalwart fan of Thomas Hardy, I was curious to read Lowry's account of his life after the death of his first wife Emma. Having myself just completed "A Pair of Blue Eyes", I was ever so pleased to discover the many comparisons to Hardy's early life. The protagonists of his novel clearly mirror Emma and him in their courting days. While those similarities sustained me for a while, I soon began to tire of Lowry's depiction of the aging, grieving Hardy. She portrays him as so whiny and wimpy and unpleasant that you just want her novel to end. The constant back and forth among Emma's diaries, Hardy's memories, and the present-day situation becomes tedious and a tad confusing. I prefer to think of him and revere him as the great writer that he was and not as a pathetic old man.
February 13, 2025
I’ve given it *** as it was beautifully written and captures TH’s feelings of loss and regret. Alternating between EH’s diaries and TH’s narrative and recollections builds up a picture of marriage gone stale where love and affection and companionship gradually dissipate and they are left as overlapping strangers in a house that neither of them feel comfortable in.
But I felt little empathy for TH. He came across as completely self focused and centred. It’s hard to read a book about someone’s grief and sense of loss when you think ‘ serves you right you miserable….’ Read it is small chunks and was quite happy to put down each time after a couple of chapters. Not a keeper for me.
But I felt little empathy for TH. He came across as completely self focused and centred. It’s hard to read a book about someone’s grief and sense of loss when you think ‘ serves you right you miserable….’ Read it is small chunks and was quite happy to put down each time after a couple of chapters. Not a keeper for me.
May 14, 2022
The Chosen is a beautifully written heartbreaking story of the death of Thomas Hardy’s first wife. Once very much in love but when Emma Hardy withdraws her love and isolates herself, her famous author husband, loses himself in his writing, what would become a classic, Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
The Chosen deals with mourning and grief and guilt of unanswered questions where feelings are expressed through poetry.
The Chosen deals with mourning and grief and guilt of unanswered questions where feelings are expressed through poetry.
July 18, 2023
I was looking forward to reading this book, as I wanted to know more about Thomas Hardy, and because of Hilary Mantel's positive quote. But it seems, and I do believe the author did her research, that he was an unpleasant and selfish person. I did finish the book, in spite of all Hardy's whining and complaining, but will restrict myself in future to reading his books, and not read anymore about the man himself.
December 7, 2021
I really enjoyed this book about Thomas Hardy and his life before and after his first wife Emma dies. Its quite bleak in parts but really moved me. After he finds diaries written by Emma during the course of their marriage he realises all was not as it seemed. Beautifully written it tugs at the heartstrings. Not one to be missed if you love historical novels or Thomas Hardy.
July 21, 2023
I can objectively admire the writing in this book—it's so good, occasionally reminding me of Hardy's. But as sometimes happens with Hardy's as well, I couldn't connect with it at all. I didn't feel connected to him in his grief nor could I conjure a dislike for him for being a selfish and cold man. I just felt nothing.
July 25, 2022
Now a conundrum....do I reread this or read Tess? I absolutely loved The Chosen. It was beautifully written and full of wisdom. It made me think about my own writing and relationships in the way that a truly good novel can.
August 14, 2025
A really sad and exquisite historical novel. Not the sort of book I usually go for, but found many parts of it profoundly moving - especially the musings on the unknowability of the beloved and desired Other. What it is when marriages go sour... how to age well, how to maintain the mystery and privacy of the self whilst also taking pains not to close yourself off from true love and partnership. Made me want to revisit all of Hardy's books. Brava Elizabeth Lowry! A slow, gentle but thought-provoking read. I had no idea he treated Emma so carelessly!
'We talk about marriage as a final state, safe harbour, in which we'll be protected from our darker urges. From doubt and suffering and our own destructiveness. It's the natural, indeed the only endng our world writes for an honest love. Yet even honest men will, in extremity, deliberate indefensible actions. Not acting on temptation doesn't mean that we escape our longings. I'm not even a particularly good man. Who am I to judge?
I loved Emma when I married her. I know I did. And she loved me. We had such hope. But somehwere in our years together we became antagonists, sucking at the same dry soil, clawing over the same few inches of ground, until I felt that one of us had to fall if the other was to survive. Towards the end I believed that only her death would set me free.
It was an illusion of vourse - the wild hope and anger and the antagonism - all an illusion. If only I'd known earlier that these things had nothing to do with our actual selves! If only I'd taken a few days or months to notice Em as she really was, to allow myself to forgive her for falling short of my dream, to re-imagine her, I would have saved us both a great deal of sadness. Instead I turned away and behaved as if my real life lay elsewhere. And now I can't escape this knowlegde: that at the very least love asks only that we don't avert our gaze, that we continue to see.
With Emma's dying it's as if an essential aprt of me has died too. I've written about suffering but suddenly find that I don't understand it. Words fail me."
I wonder if this book would have affected me so much if I wasn't about to get married myself and pondering the question of how to make a good marriage and let the other thrive...
'We talk about marriage as a final state, safe harbour, in which we'll be protected from our darker urges. From doubt and suffering and our own destructiveness. It's the natural, indeed the only endng our world writes for an honest love. Yet even honest men will, in extremity, deliberate indefensible actions. Not acting on temptation doesn't mean that we escape our longings. I'm not even a particularly good man. Who am I to judge?
I loved Emma when I married her. I know I did. And she loved me. We had such hope. But somehwere in our years together we became antagonists, sucking at the same dry soil, clawing over the same few inches of ground, until I felt that one of us had to fall if the other was to survive. Towards the end I believed that only her death would set me free.
It was an illusion of vourse - the wild hope and anger and the antagonism - all an illusion. If only I'd known earlier that these things had nothing to do with our actual selves! If only I'd taken a few days or months to notice Em as she really was, to allow myself to forgive her for falling short of my dream, to re-imagine her, I would have saved us both a great deal of sadness. Instead I turned away and behaved as if my real life lay elsewhere. And now I can't escape this knowlegde: that at the very least love asks only that we don't avert our gaze, that we continue to see.
With Emma's dying it's as if an essential aprt of me has died too. I've written about suffering but suddenly find that I don't understand it. Words fail me."
I wonder if this book would have affected me so much if I wasn't about to get married myself and pondering the question of how to make a good marriage and let the other thrive...
July 5, 2023
‘Mrs Hardy passed away unexpectedly this morning.’
One Wednesday morning in November 1912, Thomas Hardy, increasingly estranged from his wife Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. She dies in his arms. Given their estrangement, why did Thomas Hardy fall into such deep despair at her death? Emma’s death resulted in Hardy writing some of his most beautiful poetry, poems addressed to his lost love.
‘The Emma I miss is the girl who died, oh, twenty years ago. I’ve mourned her a very long time.’
After Emma’s death, Thomas finds a set of diaries that Emma had kept, and he discovers how she felt about their marriage: ‘I expect nothing from him now & that is just as well – neither gratitude nor attention, love, nor justice. He belongs to the public & all my years of devotion count for nothing.’ Emma and Thomas have no children: Emma blames Thomas for this.
Weeks pass, and Thomas is frozen. He returns obsessively to Emma’s ‘catalogue of grievances’ and is unable to manage his household. From Emma’s perspective, Thomas had shut her out of his life. He had rejected her desire to work with him, to be his amanuensis. Gradually, Thomas pays attention to his household and his surroundings. His sister Kate helps, as does his secretary (soon to become his second wife) Florence Dugdale.
‘Let me tell you what being a writer is like. It is like climbing a mountain. Every time you’re nearly at the top, you lose your footing and fall to the bottom, and you have to begin again.’
In this novel, which was short-listed for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023, Ms Lowry brings Emma out of the shadows as well as showing a different side to Thomas Hardy. I read several of Hardy’s novel as a teenager but didn’t discover his poetry until much later. Having read this novel, I now want to revisit both.
‘Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
One Wednesday morning in November 1912, Thomas Hardy, increasingly estranged from his wife Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. She dies in his arms. Given their estrangement, why did Thomas Hardy fall into such deep despair at her death? Emma’s death resulted in Hardy writing some of his most beautiful poetry, poems addressed to his lost love.
‘The Emma I miss is the girl who died, oh, twenty years ago. I’ve mourned her a very long time.’
After Emma’s death, Thomas finds a set of diaries that Emma had kept, and he discovers how she felt about their marriage: ‘I expect nothing from him now & that is just as well – neither gratitude nor attention, love, nor justice. He belongs to the public & all my years of devotion count for nothing.’ Emma and Thomas have no children: Emma blames Thomas for this.
Weeks pass, and Thomas is frozen. He returns obsessively to Emma’s ‘catalogue of grievances’ and is unable to manage his household. From Emma’s perspective, Thomas had shut her out of his life. He had rejected her desire to work with him, to be his amanuensis. Gradually, Thomas pays attention to his household and his surroundings. His sister Kate helps, as does his secretary (soon to become his second wife) Florence Dugdale.
‘Let me tell you what being a writer is like. It is like climbing a mountain. Every time you’re nearly at the top, you lose your footing and fall to the bottom, and you have to begin again.’
In this novel, which was short-listed for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023, Ms Lowry brings Emma out of the shadows as well as showing a different side to Thomas Hardy. I read several of Hardy’s novel as a teenager but didn’t discover his poetry until much later. Having read this novel, I now want to revisit both.
‘Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
May 1, 2022
Not finished it…..
It’s a very slow book, very dark and about Thomas Hardy after his wife dies.
It wasn’t a happy marriage. Emma had a superiority complex. She thought she had married below her in marrying a writer. An unpublished writer, at the time of meeting. She was a Deacons daughter and therefore she thought she married below her status - which, of course, she didn’t!
She was also jealous of her husbands success and talent as her poems were awful yet SHE thought them far superior to her husbands work. Even though HE was the published author and poet. His writings were their income and he was very generous with his money towards his wife.
This book shows his grief and mental state once Emma dies. It shows his budding relationship with Florence but he always thought of Emma, even though Emma had always been a jealous “cold fish” towards him.
It’s a very slow book, very well written (which is why I gave it two stars instead of one!) but a very dark subject so it’s very dull and quite depressingly boring. I’ve given up on this book for now as I need something more invigorating or I’d go put my head in the oven with any more of this book about death and grief!!
It’s a very slow book, very dark and about Thomas Hardy after his wife dies.
It wasn’t a happy marriage. Emma had a superiority complex. She thought she had married below her in marrying a writer. An unpublished writer, at the time of meeting. She was a Deacons daughter and therefore she thought she married below her status - which, of course, she didn’t!
She was also jealous of her husbands success and talent as her poems were awful yet SHE thought them far superior to her husbands work. Even though HE was the published author and poet. His writings were their income and he was very generous with his money towards his wife.
This book shows his grief and mental state once Emma dies. It shows his budding relationship with Florence but he always thought of Emma, even though Emma had always been a jealous “cold fish” towards him.
It’s a very slow book, very well written (which is why I gave it two stars instead of one!) but a very dark subject so it’s very dull and quite depressingly boring. I’ve given up on this book for now as I need something more invigorating or I’d go put my head in the oven with any more of this book about death and grief!!
July 17, 2023
*3.5
This one is a difficult one to rate...Nothing really happens and it is hugely depressing. But I liked it.
A largely factual account of Tom Hardy's relationship with his first wife. Let's just say I hate him. Such a whiner!! 'Its all about me! I'm special, you're not!' - what I imagine him to have said on numerous occasions. The fact that he married a much younger woman shortly after is astounding to me. The audacity! I'm glad he was impotent! Karma! (Sorry for the rant...I just hate him)
Poor Emma! I don't like that Tom was the main focus of this book... I think Emma deserved the lead finally. Other than that it is written very beautifully (very much in the style of the era), very descriptive and definitely makes you think more about relationships and love.
I will definitely find it hard to read Thomas Hardy's work after this....
I would recommend if you are a fan of classics and autobiographies - it seems to have the impression of both, while being neither.
This one is a difficult one to rate...Nothing really happens and it is hugely depressing. But I liked it.
A largely factual account of Tom Hardy's relationship with his first wife. Let's just say I hate him. Such a whiner!! 'Its all about me! I'm special, you're not!' - what I imagine him to have said on numerous occasions. The fact that he married a much younger woman shortly after is astounding to me. The audacity! I'm glad he was impotent! Karma! (Sorry for the rant...I just hate him)
Poor Emma! I don't like that Tom was the main focus of this book... I think Emma deserved the lead finally. Other than that it is written very beautifully (very much in the style of the era), very descriptive and definitely makes you think more about relationships and love.
I will definitely find it hard to read Thomas Hardy's work after this....
I would recommend if you are a fan of classics and autobiographies - it seems to have the impression of both, while being neither.
September 4, 2023
Poignant reflections as Thomas Hardy copes with the death of his wife Emma and the mixed memories of their relationship. More effective than Hamnet in my opinion, as a similar piece of historical fiction that takes us into the world of a famous English author.
It seems harsh though when people judge their personalities negatively due to Lowry’s writing. Some here have even rated the book harshly because they didn’t like the characters. I wonder how many of us would stand up to scrutiny if our thoughts and memoirs were broadcast to others?
I am now of a mind to read more of Hardy’s novels (Have only read Far From the Madding Crowd thus far) and check out his 1912/13 poems that deal with the loss of his wife. I also see there are two historical fiction novels that deal with his death, one from the position of his second wife Florence and one from the housekeeper.
It seems harsh though when people judge their personalities negatively due to Lowry’s writing. Some here have even rated the book harshly because they didn’t like the characters. I wonder how many of us would stand up to scrutiny if our thoughts and memoirs were broadcast to others?
I am now of a mind to read more of Hardy’s novels (Have only read Far From the Madding Crowd thus far) and check out his 1912/13 poems that deal with the loss of his wife. I also see there are two historical fiction novels that deal with his death, one from the position of his second wife Florence and one from the housekeeper.
July 12, 2022
This is an imaginative account of the days after the death of Thomas Hardy's wife, Emma. It is beautifully written and depicts overwhelming grief rather well. But to be honest by the time I finished it I had grown to despise Hardy's whining and breast beating. It may well have been traumatic for him to find his wife's diaries and to learn that her perspective on their marriage was rather different from his. But he comes across as selfish and egotistical in all his dealings with women. He visits his dying sister Mary for his own comfort; he exploits his almost-mistress Florence's affection for him to persuade her to run his household for the future. The story is clearly grounded in extensive and thorough research but I didn't find it an enjoyable or even moving read.
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