Thomas Hardy’s Wessex – 31st October 2024
This is an in person event taking place at 7.30pm in the Council Chamber.
Please arrive by 7.15pm to give you time to buy a ticket.
Tickets £6 for members, £8 non members on the door. Card or cash.
Meet the real Thomas Hardy through his most personal objects. Curator Harriet Still will take us on a journey through Hardy’s life, family and social beliefs, by looking at the things that he left behind. Many have been hidden in the archives since his death. Now viewable they’re giving an intimate new glimpse into this well-known novelist’s mind.
Harriet Still curated the Wessex Museums’ Hardy Wessex exhibitions in 2022. She previously managed his birthplace Hardy’s Cottage for the National Trust and sat on the Thomas Hardy Society Council of Management.
Thomas Hardy’s Wessex – a talk by curator Harriet Still.
Thomas Hardy
From Encyclopeadia Britannica: – https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hardy
Thomas Hardy (born June 2, 1840, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England—died January 11, 1928, Dorchester, Dorset) English novelist and poet who set much of his work in Wessex, his name for the counties of southwestern England.
Hardy was the eldest of the four children of Thomas Hardy, a stonemason and jobbing builder, and his wife, Jemima (née Hand). He grew up in an isolated cottage on the edge of open heathland.
Though he was often ill as a child, his early experience of rural life, with its seasonal rhythms and oral culture, was fundamental to much of his later writing.
He spent a year at the village school at age eight and then moved on to schools in Dorchester, the nearby county town, where he received a good grounding in mathematics and Latin.
In 1856 he was apprenticed to John Hicks, a local architect. And in 1862, shortly before his 22nd birthday, he moved to London and became a draftsman in the busy office of Arthur Blomfield, a leading ecclesiastical architect. Driven back to Dorset by ill health in 1867, he worked for Hicks again and then for the Weymouth architect G.R. Crickmay.
About the Thomas Hardy Society
Founded in 1968, the Thomas Hardy Society promotes understanding and appreciation of the life and works of the eponymous novelist and poet – 184o-1928
One of the largest literary societies in the world, the Thomas Hardy Society comprises a community of general readers and enthusiasts as well as students and academics.
Based in Dorchester, the society organises a lively programme of public engagement and academic events including lectures, study days, guided walks through Hardy’s Wessex and in London and elsewhere, concerts, poetry readings, and more.
With an international membership, three journals a year, a biennial festival and conference, and strong links to other organisations promoting Hardyan themes, the Thomas Hardy Society acts as a hub for the education and enjoyment of anyone with an interest in Thomas Hardy.
Find out more about the Friends here: https://friendsofmas.org/
Date/Time
Date(s) - 31/10/2024
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
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