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 protegees and his two 'scribbling' wives, to balance the hitherto exclusive focus on the 'major' novels."

This book explores Hardy's ambivalent attitude to women both in his fiction and in his interactions with his wives, literary protegees and contemporary female authors. It combines a feminist approach with close textual analysis, supplemented by biographical insights gleaned from the published letters of Thomas Hardy and his two wives, his 'literary notebooks', his disguised autobiography, marginalia and other manuscript materials."