Status Updates From Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn...

'If he went to church, he explained that it was not "because he believed in it, which he did not, but because it was good for the people to get clean and come together once a week - like discipline in the army."'

'The problem of who was to live at Max Gate apart from ghosts remained.'

A wonderful sentence conveying the truth of the complicated situation at Hardy's house after the death of his first wife and displaying Tomalin's great skill as a popular biographer.

'[Hardy] was always exceptionally anxious and sensitive about reviews.... He might have spared himself the trouble: the divide between those who disliked his language, his lower-class characters, his troubling women and his gloom, and those who appreciated the beauty and imaginative power of his work, was already there and remained firmly fixed throughout his career as a novelist.'

On Oct 30, 2024, I accidentally left this book in Los Angeles. It was easily replaceable but the Stonehenge bookmark from our first trip to England was not. Thanks to my cousin Summer, both book and bookmark arrived back at my house in Utah on Apr 26, 2025!