Rediscovering Hardy's "Facts" notebook

Greenslade, William

Abstract

From his early twenties, until his death, Thomas Hardy was an habitual - even obsessive - note-taker. He kept notebooks, some of pocket-size, from early on in his career, only to destroy most of them or leave instructions that the remainder should be destroyed. Of those which did survive all have been edited, with the exception of ‘Poetical Matter’ (surviving only on microfilm), and the notebook which is the subject of this essay, described by Hardy as ‘Facts: from Newspapers, Histories, Biographies, & other chronicles (mainly Local)’. The story of the composition and make-up of ‘Facts’ is full of puzzles, but it is clear that it belongs to the period 1882–1913, but with a special concentration in its compilation in the year 1884. ‘Facts’ is a substantial and stoutly-bound manuscript volume suggesting in its physical characteristics a deliberate and sustained enterprise, but one whose nature changed during the course of compilation.

• Publication Date: 2000
• Deposit Date: Nov 20, 2023
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Pages: 171-186
• Book Title: The Achievement of Thomas Hardy
• Chapter Number: 11
• ISBN: 9781349652730
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-65271-6_11
• Keywords: Thomas Hardy "Facts" Notebook
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11456724
• Additional Information: Volume edited by Phillip Mallett
• Contract Date: Nov 1, 1999