The great English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) worked with his second wife, Florence, on this account of his life. It was published under her name, in two separate volumes, after his death. Its origins are as fascinating as the man himself: written in the third person, it was compiled from Hardy's selections from his diaries, notebooks and letters, typed up by Florence and further edited by her after he died. The work provides an invaluable, if idiosyncratic, record of Hardy's life and complex, contradictory character. This is the second volume, published in 1930 and covering the period 1892–1928. It includes the publication of Jude the Obscure (1895) and its hostile reception, Hardy's return to writing poetry, the creation of his epic drama The Dynasts (1908), the death of Emma, his first wife, Hardy's response to World War I, and his marriage to Florence Dugdale.
The great English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) worked with his second wife, Florence, on this account of his life. It was published under her name, in two separate volumes, after his death. Its origins are as fascinating as the man himself: written in the third person, it was compiled from Hardy's selections from his diaries, notebooks and letters, typed up by Florence and further edited by her after he died. The work provides an invaluable, if idiosyncratic, record of Hardy's life and complex, contradictory character. This is the first volume, published in 1928 and covering the period 1840–91, including Hardy's childhood in Dorset, the publication of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), his marriage in 1874 to Emma Gifford and the building of Max Gate, their home near Dorchester.
Dowden's critical study of 1875 approaches Shakespeare from the human side, showing how Shakespeare the man is visible through his art. Moving from Shakespeare's early plays to his late period, and grouping the plays according to key stages in his career, the book traces the growth of Shakespeare's intellect and character from youth to full maturity. Dowden does not seek to align Shakespeare with any particular single character from his plays, but sees aspects of Shakespeare in many of his dramatic creations, demonstrating how Shakespeare represents many different sides of human life. The reader is provided with an insight into the questions at the forefront of Shakespeare's mind, his most intense moments of inspiration and his discoveries about human life. Outlining the differences between the youthful Shakespeare and Shakespeare as a mature and experienced man, the book enables us to better understand Shakespeare's character and genius.
The novels of Charles Dickens (1812–70), with their inimitable energy and their comic, tragic and grotesque characters, are still widely read, and reworked for film and television. Dickens himself had the original manuscripts of his works bound and presented them to his friends. That of Great Expectations was given to Chauncy Hare Townshend, with whom Dickens shared an interest in mesmerism and the occult. Townshend bequeathed his library (including the manuscript), together with collections of paintings and objects, to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum in 1868. The manuscript has been newly photographed and is here reproduced in colour and at actual size. The Cambridge Library Collection is also reissuing the serialised version of Great Expectations (1860–1) and the first book edition (1861, in three volumes). Dickens scholars and enthusiasts can now study the work-in-progress, with all its deletions and revisions, alongside the first two published versions.
Published two years after the novelist's death, this two-volume work is the first and the best-known of the many biographies of the Brontë family. Written by the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65), the book was instrumental in the creation of the Brontës' public image as a family set apart by literary genius and personal tragedy. Gaskell's chief source for the biography was some 350 letters between Charlotte and her friend Ellen Nussey, letters which Charlotte's husband had asked Nussey to destroy after his wife's death, fearing they would damage her reputation. Volume 1 consists of 14 chapters and covers the Brontë ancestry, Charlotte's time at school and as a governess, her juvenilia, the 'deplorable conduct' of her laudanum-addicted brother Branwell, and the publication of her poems, along with those of her sisters Anne and Emily, in the volume Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell in 1846.
Published two years after the novelist's death, this two-volume work is the first and the best-known of the many biographies of the Brontë family. Written by the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) the book was instrumental in the creation of the Brontës' public image as a family set apart by literary genius and personal tragedy. Gaskell's chief source for the biography was some 350 letters between Charlotte and her friend Ellen Nussey, letters which Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, had asked Nussey to destroy after his wife's death, fearing they would damage her reputation. Volume 2 covers Charlotte's writing of The Professor, the publication of Jane Eyre, the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne, the publication of Shirley and Villette, her correspondence with Thackeray, Gaskell and Martineau, and her eventual marriage in 1854 to Nicholls, her father's curate. It concludes with a description of Charlotte's funeral.
John O'Keeffe (1747–1833) was an Irish playwright who began his career as an actor in 1764. His first significant success as a writer was the play The Son-in-Law in 1779, and he was later called 'our English Molière' by essayist William Hazlitt. He moved to London in 1781 - around the same time that his marriage broke down - and wrote a string of successful comic operas and dramatic works, including Wild Oats (1791). However, he suffered from failing eyesight and was nearly blind at the height of his fame. He dictated this memoir, published in two volumes in 1826, to his daughter, Adelaide (1776–1865). In Volume 1, O'Keeffe recounts his childhood in Ireland, his first trip to London in 1762, where he saw the legendary actor and theatre producer David Garrick (1717–79) on stage, and the beginning of his own dramatic career upon returning to Dublin.
John O'Keeffe (1747–1833) was an Irish playwright who began his career as an actor in 1764. His first significant success as a writer was the play The Son-in-Law in 1779, and he was later called 'our English Molière' by essayist William Hazlitt. He moved to London in 1781 - around the same time that his marriage broke down - and wrote a string of successful comic operas and dramatic works, including Wild Oats (1791). However, he suffered from failing eyesight and was nearly blind at the height of his fame. He dictated this memoir, published in two volumes in 1826, to his daughter, Adelaide (1776–1865). In Volume 2, O'Keeffe recounts his years in London, discussing many of his plays and giving a glimpse into theatre life in Georgian England, before moving on to his subsequent retirement and the complications surrounding the publication of his collected works.
A leading figure in Romanticism and a political campaigner committed to social reform, Lord Byron (1788–1824) is regarded as one of the greatest of British poets. First published in 1922, this two-volume work is a compilation of letters Byron wrote between 1808 and 1824 to some of his close friends, including Lady Melbourne, John Cam Hobhouse, a fellow-student at Cambridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The introduction and biographical notes by the publisher John Murray IV (1851–1928), grandson of Byron's own publisher John Murray II, supplement the letters and restore their narrative thread. Volume 1 covers the period 1808–15, from the trip Byron took across Europe with Hobhouse as a young man to his marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke. A large portion of the volume is devoted to Byron's letters to Lady Melbourne, in which he reveals the many details of his tormented love life.
John Forster (1812–76), an exact contemporary of Charles Dickens, was one of his closest friends, and acted for him (as for many other authors) as advisor, editor, proofreader, agent and marketing manager: according to Thackeray, 'whenever anyone is in a scrape we all fly to him for refuge. He is omniscient and works miracles.' Forster was Dickens' literary executor, and was left the manuscripts of many of the novels, which he in turn left (along with the rest of his magnificent library) to the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum). He was ideally placed to write a biography of Dickens, having known him since the 1830s, and having been involved in deeply private matters such as Dickens' separation from his wife. This three-volume account was first published between 1872 and 1874; the version of Volume 2 reissued here is the 'tenth thousand' of 1873.
