Hardy and Some Contemporary Female Writers

Abstract

In 1869 in the office of the publisher Frederick Chapman, an aspiring young writer was introduced to a novelist with an established reputation who gave the novice sober advice regarding the publication of his inflammatory first novel ‘The Poor Man and the Lady’. This meeting between Thomas Hardy and George Meredith developed into a 40-year literary and personal friendship culminating in Hardy’s obituary poem ‘George Meredith’ (dated ‘May 1909’) and the essay ‘G.M.: A Reminiscence’ (1928). More than a decade after this memorable meeting, in the early 1880s, and again in Frederick Chapman’s office, a beautiful young writer — flushed with the success of her maiden novel — was introduced to the journalist and editor Frank Harris, who recalled her as: Distinctly pretty with large dark eyes and black hair… Her chief desire she explained to me at once. She wanted to know all the writers, especially the novelists. Would I introduce her to Thomas Hardy and George Moore? I promised to do my best for her. On the same morning she put forward something of the feminist’s view…she was a suffragette before the name became known.1