Abstract
In January 1882, when Hardy agreed to write Two on a Tower, he had reached a point almost exactly midway in his career as a writer of prose fiction. He had shown his creative gifts in a number of works, most of all in Far from the Madding Crowd and The Return of the Native, but his greatest tragedies were still to come. The kind of ‘charity’ or altruism which inspires them is more clearly and confidently voiced in Two on a Tower, their immediate forerunner, than ever before. More than any other of his novels it combines all those elements, including tragedy and humour, which Hardy had in mind when he divided his fiction into three categories: ‘Novels of Character and Environment’, ‘Romances and Fantasies’, and ‘Novels of Ingenuity’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Cf. Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy, London, 1978, p. 26.
By adding the date (7 July) and ‘Viviette yielded to all the passion of her first union with him’ (xxxvi), and ’I ought not to have consented to that last interview: all was well till then!’ and the date of birth (xl). This was first pointed out by J. C. Maxwell in The Thomas Hardy Year Book, no. 2, 1971.
Copyright information
© 1990 F. B. Pinion
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pinion, F.B. (1990). Two on a Tower. In: Hardy the Writer. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389458_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389458_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-38876-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-38945-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)