Reviews of Hardy Biographies

Some critics have claimed that Thomas Hardy led an uneventful (i.e. uninteresting) life, but this hardly seems congruent with the controversies which have been generated by his biographers. From Lois Deacon's claim (now discredited) that Hardy had an illegitimate child by his cousin Tryphena Sparks, to Robert Gittings' iconoclastic treatment of his subject, to Martin Seymour-Smith's aggressively "anti-academic" perspective, there has been more than enough intellectual excitement generated by explorations of this particular author. The goal of this page is to reproduce reviews of major Hardy biographies to help readers evaluate them. Additional texts will be added as they become available. Click on the author and title in the Table of Contents below to read the reviews.