Public sensibilities were so incensed that in certain quarters the book had to be sold under the counter in a plain brown wrapper, hee hee hee (conjures up a Scarfe-cartoon image of old men in dirty raincoats sneaking up the alleyways furtively clutching their copies of Jude). Emma was outraged too, believing (no doubt accurately) that the novel's hellish depiction of marriage was a slur on her, as his wife. This can't have made the atmosphere at Maxgate any easier, but it was probably not a factor in Hardy's decision to cease writing novels. It was public opinion that mattered. By then he had pretty effectively isolated himself from her and seems not to have cared how she felt. Until she was safely dead, that is, and became only a memory, incapable of autonomous action and without a voice. (Apart from those devastating memoirs.) Then he sure changed his tune. Poor Florence.

Liz, in the "Heart of Thomas Hardy" thread you said An adopted grandfather of mine was a delivery boy and knew him. That's fascinating - I don't suppose he wrote down any recollections of this, did he? Emma's personal maid, who participated in the daily household routine, left a blistering portrayal of him. The accounts given by these firsthand observers - servants and delivery boys who were not movers and shakers in the literary scene and thus had no power over him - is very revealing.

Oh well, he liked cats. Couldn't be all bad. And I'll never stop reading his books, which will outlive us all.