View source for The Poor Man and the Lady

{{short description|Unpublished 1867-68 novel by Thomas Hardy}}
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'''''The Poor Man and the Lady''''' was the [[first novel]] written by [[Thomas Hardy]].  It was written in 1867 to 1868 and never published.  After the manuscript had been rejected by at least five [[publisher]]s, Hardy gave up his attempts to sell the novel in its original form; however, he incorporated some of its scenes and themes into later works, notably in the poem "The Poor Man and the Lady" and in the novella ''[[An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress]]'' (1878).

The manuscript no longer exists; Hardy destroyed the last surviving fragment during his last years, after abandoning the idea of reconstructing the rest of the novel from memory.

==Further reading==

* ''Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy'' (Norman Page, Editor). Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]], 2000.

{{Thomas Hardy}}

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[[Category:1867 British novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Thomas Hardy]]
[[Category:Lost books]]
[[Category:1867 debut novels]]


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