Claire Tomalin

Thomas Hardy is unique in being equally famous as a novelist and a poet.

A physically frail country boy, he set himself on a long and effortful path to achieve success. It took him to London, which he explored thoroughly and persistently.

As a result his life was divided between Dorset, where his family and his heart belonged, and the metropolis. The capital offered a world of gentlemen's clubs, dazzling literary ladies, the Season and aristocratic friends that half seduced him.

In the second of five lectures on different topics, celebrated biographer Claire Tomalin looks at this division. She considers how even in death Hardy was divided. His ashes were laid in Westminster Abbey with great pomp and celebrated pallbearers, while his heart was laid in the country churchyard of his childhood.