Nul points for conduct

Great writers are never that great close up. Ralph Pite’s revealing biography of Thomas Hardy focuses on the emotional character of the poet and novelist. He comes across as difficult, snobbish, tight-fisted, self-centred, hypocritical, and, worst of all, ungrateful to those who helped him in the early stages of his career. The great champion of the rural poor was a mean and petty-minded employer. He never tipped his servants. He interfered constantly with minor building alterations. And if the grate was stacked too high he would remove surplus coals and lay them on the fender as a rebuke to the maid. Though his works suggest an abiding interest in women’s rights, he was opposed to female suffrage. From his early youth he was driven by a cold determination to educate himself and rise into the prosperous middle classes.

He had great trouble getting started as a writer. At the age of 27 his first book, The Poor Man and the Lady (which sounds like an unimaginative spoof of his mature work), was accepted, without much enthusiasm, by Chapman and Hall.