HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2054 9/7/02 "HARDY'S VOICE QUERY" ======================================================= From: "BRIAN DEVONALD" Subject: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 22:24:39 +0100 I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE ARE,IN EXISTENCE,RECORDINGS OF THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING.SINCE HE DIED IN 1928 IT IS A POSSIBILITY EVEN IF IT IS A REMOTE ONE.IF SO.WHERE WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO PURCHASE SUCH RECORDINGS? THANK YOU. ========== Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 14:49:55 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS No, sad to say, Hardy never did make a recording Brian, even although the technology was there before he died. Betty Cortus ========== Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 14:21:55 +0100 Subject: Re: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS From: Philip Irwin For people interested in this sort of thing, I can recommend 'The Century in Sound', a CD available from the British Library. While this sadly does not have a recording of TH, it does have some fascinating early voices from his era, such as those of Christabel Pankhurst, Lloyd-George, Ernest Shackleton and George V. Philip ========== Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 10:32:33 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS To our knowledge there is no such recording. This may seem odd given TH's keen interest in new technologies and his celebration, in the Victorian novel, of the innovatory telegraph (*Laodicean,* 1881). Hardy was a very private, shy, reserved man. Perhaps this influenced both his declining of an invitation to tour the US and, in similar vein, making any recordings of his poems? He did, though, succumb to owning a radio. The only letter (extant), that even mentions this, goes thus: __________________ MAX GATE, | DORCHESTER. | 3 June 1924 Dear Mr Squire: A short time ago I was inveigled into setting up Wireless, & did not know what was going to happen. Last night we heard your lecture -- every word, beautifully delivered we thought -- & I must thank you for taking the trouble to give it.... .... P.S. Our dog listened attentively. (Intelex, 252) ___________________ Cheers, RM ========== From: "Rare Books" Subject: Re: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 11:59:41 -0400 The DCM has a very good recording of Gosse speaking of Hardy shortly after Hardy's death. Gosse sounds exactly the way he looks. ========== From: "Patrick Tolfree" Subject: Re: THOMAS HARDY SPEAKING VOICE RECORDINGS Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 00:30:27 +0100 Second time round, without typos. So sorry. In the absence of a recording of Hardy's voice we have to rely on how his contemporaries described it. Several of the subjects in Dr James Gibson's book Thomas Hardy:Interviews and Recollections (Macmillan) give us an idea: Page 5 - Emma on first meeting him at St Juliot's Rectory in 1870: ' ... his slightly different accent, his soft voice' [Some Recollections, Emma Hardy] Page 75 - ' ... speaking in his gentle, refined voice ...' [ Evelyn Sharp, journalist and author] Page 144 - ' ... a spare little figure in a sober suit, even his voice quiet, level, precisely modulated' [Marjorie Lilley, 'The Hardy I Knew', Thomas Hardy Society Review, 1978] Page 146 - '... a gentle and smooth voice and polished maners' [Katharine Adams in a letter to Sydney Cockerell] Page 147 - 'He possessed a soft cadenced voice with just a faint suggestion of rough rustic flavour in it - an English voice, but not of the mincing or high-pitched order.' [William M. Parker, writer and literary critic] Patrick Tolfree ==========