Thomas Hardy
The Museum holds the world’s largest collection relating to Dorset-born Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) – one of the most important writers of the 19th century. It includes many paper items, together with clothes such as Hardy’s embroidered christening robe, his sister’s stunning red silk bustle dress, and a striped scarf that he lent to his gardener. The core of the collection was gifted to the Museum by the Hardy family in 1937, and the archive was placed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2012.
Thomas Hardy
November 10, 2020
Thomas Hardy’s scarf
This scarf is one of the few pieces of Hardy’s clothing that survive. When Hardy died, his wife Florence asked their gardener Bertie Stephens to…
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Thomas Hardy
October 30, 2020
Katharine Hardy’s red dress
Hardy’s younger sister Katharine (1856-1940) was a schoolteacher and had this dress made in Dorchester. With its luxurious red silk and bustle, it is reminiscent…
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Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Maquette of the Statue of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) at the Top ‘o Town
Thomas Hardy Eric Kennington Bronze…
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Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Perpetual calendar
After Hardy’s first wife Emma died in 1912, Hardy kept his desk calendar set to the date he met her – ‘That never to be…
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Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Thomas Hardy’s writing pens
Hardy wrote Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure with these pens, dipping the nibs repeatedly into the inkwell on his desk. He engraved…
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Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Original manuscript of The Woodlanders
The Woodlanders is the first novel Hardy worked on in his new study at Max Gate and was partly inspired by the village of Melbury…
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Thomas Hardy
October 14, 2020
Original manuscript of Under the Greenwood Tree
Hardy wrote Under the Greenwood Tree in 1871 when he was living at Weymouth and Higher Bockhampton. He set the story in Mellstock, a village…
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