Thomas Hardy by William Strang, 1893. National Portrait Gallery, London.
A 1916 advert for the 1915 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s first successful novel, Far from the Madding Crowd:
Far from the Madding Crowd Advert
It featured early film favourite, Florence Turner. She was a wildly popular star who first came to public notice as, simply, The Vitagraph Girl. By the time she acted in Far from the Madding Crowd (which was made for her own production company), she had well over 100 screen credits to her name. No copy of this film is known to be extant.
“Misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror.”-Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Happy 174th birthday, Thomas Hardy!
Here’s a nice little caricature:
Thomas Hardy in Vanity Fair, 4 June 1892.
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