Ian Pollock (B. 1950) "Thomas Hardy" Signed lower right. Watercolor on Illustration Board. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting was originally published on the Fleetwood First Day Cover for the Great Britain 20p Thomas Hardy stamp issued July 10, 1990. In an age of proper Victorian morality, the works of Thomas Hardy were sometimes received with disgust and indignation. His novels of human tragedy and immorality were indeed ahead of their time; in his final novel Jude the Obscure (1895), the principal characters leave their respective spouses for one another, live together and have children. Hardy's perceived sympathy for his characters was greeted with outrage -- the Bishop of Wakefield reported that he tossed the book into the fire. Yet today, Hardy is readily acknowledged as England's foremost regional novelist, a man ahead of his time. Born in 1840, Hardy's most notable novels are set in the fictional region of "Wessex" in rural southwestern England. Many of his early works were published in magazines a chapter at a time and thus have the spice of melodrama -- a buildup at the end of each chapter to entice the reader's interest for the following month. Hardy's major works included The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude. It was the reception of Jude which turned Hardy to his first love, poetry, for the remainder of his sixty-one-year writing career. The most notable of these poems was the three installments of The Dynast, a drama of the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy died in 1928 and his ashes were placed in Westminster Abbey. Image Size: 17.75 x 21.5 in. Overall Size: 20.5 x 23.5 in. Unframed. (B12492)