This book re-examines the critical debate regarding Hardy's attitude to women: apologist or misogynist? With the help of manuscript evidence and references to Hardy's autobiography, letters, literary notebooks, marginalia, and the letters of his wives, this book combines a biographical approach with a feminist reading. Significant space is devoted to the 'minor' novels, the short stories, and to Hardy's real life literary relations with his contemporary women writers, his protegees and his two 'scribbling' wives, to balance the hitherto exclusive focus on the 'major' novels.