cover image Emma Hardy's Diaries

Emma Hardy's Diaries

Emma Hardy. Carcanet Press,, $20 (216pp) ISBN 978-0-85635-435-9

On four occasions between 1874 and 1897, Thomas Hardy and his first wife visited the Continent, and on all four trips Emma Hardy kept a diary of their travels and drew thumbnail sketches of her impressions. These details of individuals, places, incidents and meals are reproduced here in facsimile together with the editor's word-for-word transcription, introduction and notes. Although the ""vital and vigorous'' Emma was a keen observer, her diaries will probably interest only Hardy enthusiastsand even they will be disappointed by the relatively few references to the novelist-poet. Sharp-eyed readers may be surprised to learn that, according to Taylor, the Hardys visited the graves of Keats and Shelley in Florence rather than in Rome, where they are actually buried. October 28