Thomas Hardy: Distracted Preacher? : Hardy's Religious Biography and Its Influence On His Novels

This study deals with the period in Hardy's life when he was considering a career in the Church.

By examining archives, identifying clergymen, and studying their writings, including sermons, the author has reconstructed these crucial years in Hardy's life.;The book charts Hardy's misleading distortions of his early religious sympathies, chronicling his close associations with opposing extremes of belief, before examining his eventual adoption of a curiously idiosyncratic agnosticism.