This book re-examines the critical debate regarding Hardy's attitude to women: apologist or misogynist? With the help of manuscript evidence and references to Hardy's autobiography, letters, literary notebooks, marginalia, and the letters of his wives, this book combines a biographical approach with a feminist reading. Significant space is devoted to the 'minor' novels, the short stories, and to Hardy's real life literary relations with his contemporary women writers, his protégées and his two 'scribbling' wives, to balance the hitherto exclusive focus on the 'major' novels.

Shanta Dutta is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta.

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: The Critics' Debate The Hand of Ethelberta The Return of the Native Two on a Tower The Woodlanders The Short Stories of the 1890s Jude the Obscure Hardy, his Wives, and his Literary Protégées Hardy and Some Contemporary Female Writers Conclusion: 'A Confused Heap of Impressions' Notes Index