Hardy Meets Emma Lavinia Gifford in Cornwall
Poet involved
What happened
On March 7, Hardy travelled to St. Juliot in north Cornwall to plan the restoration of the local parish church. There he met Emma Lavinia Gifford, the rector's sister-in-law, who would become his first wife.
Literary impact
The meeting with Emma was one of the most significant events of Hardy's life, providing both a personal partnership and a source of creative inspiration. Their courtship in the wild Cornish landscape was rapidly fictionalised in his novel A Pair of Blue Eyes, and his later grief over their estrangement and her death produced the deeply personal and powerful 'Poems of 1912-13', among the finest love lyrics in the English language.
Source: Hardy Chronology
