Some recollections

by Emma Hardy

This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection

Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The manuscript of Some Recollections is one of the documents Thomas Hardy found among his first wife’s things after her death in 1912. It is a brief (15,000-word) memoir of her early life from childhood up to her marriage – “My life’s romance now began.” Her middle-class family lived in Plymouth and moved to Cornwall when finances were tight. (Like the Bennets in Pride and Prejudice, you look at the house they lived in, and read about the servants they still employed, and think, “impoverished,” seriously?!) “Though trifling as they may seem to others all these memories are dear to me,” she writes. It’s true that most of these details seem inconsequential, of folk historical value but not particularly illuminating about the individual.

An exception is her account of her dealings with fortune tellers, who often went out of their way to give her good – and accurate – predictions, such as that she would marry a writer. It’s interesting to set this occult belief against the traditional Christian faith she espouses in her concluding paragraph, in which she insists an “Unseen Power of great benevolence directs my ways.” The other point of interest is her description of her first meeting with Hardy, who was sent to St. Juliot, where she was living with her parson brother-in-law and sister, as an architect’s assistant to begin repairs on the church. “I thought him much older than he was,” she wrote. As editor Robert Gittings notes, Hardy made corrections to the manuscript and in some places also changed the sense. Here Hardy gave proof of an old man’s continued vanity by adding “he being tired” after that line … but then partially rubbing it out.

(The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry contrasts Emma’s idyllic mini memoir with her bitterly honest journals – Hardy read but then burned these, so Lowry had to recreate their entries based on letters and tone. But Some Recollections went on to influence his own autobiography, and to be published in a stand-alone volume by Oxford University Press. Gittings introduces the manuscript (complete with Emma’s misspellings and missing punctuation) and appends a selection of Hardy’s late poems based on his first marriage – this verse, too, is central to The Chosen.)

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mostly a tame, straightforward autobiography spanning Emma´s life, also tame, straightforward. By far the most interesting part of this book, was the selection of poems from T. Hardy, each containing a detailed account of how they related to Emma, in this way or that. Hardy was most upset by Emma´s death, and used much of her autobiography in drafting his lamentations. This book, though hard to find, is a must for anyone wanting to peak behind the scenes of T. Hardy´s poetry, subsequently finding his dead wife his dearly departed muse

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting for fans of Thomas Hardy - his first wife Emma's memories of her childhood and their courtship, together with a long introduction by biographer Robert Gittings. Sadly this short book is out of print, but quite easy to get hold of second-hand.

[August · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking...