Hardy Moule

Just noticed this on "Against heresies". It begins

As a teen the great English novelist Thomas Hardy was friendly with the Moule family and their seven impressive sons. Mr Moule was vicar at Fordington, his son Charles became president of Corpus Christi in Cambridge, Handley became Lord Bishop of Durham (I can see his book on Ephesians, squeezed in amongst my commentaries, as I type this) and two others went to China as missionaries.

Thomas Hardy was a year older than Handley Moule but became close friends with Horace Moule, eight years Hardy's senior. Horace became 'Tom's special friend', he was 'the charmer, handsome and gifted' but also 'a tender-hearted son to his mother, writing to her almost every year on the anniversary of the death of the baby brother who had died before he was two'.

Horace had studied at Oxford and Cambridge but failed to gain a degree from either university. Hardy's biographer, Claire Tomalin, describes the changes in Horace's thinking that put him at odds with his upbringing: ... More here.

(It is said that Hardy's character Jude was based in part on Moule, who committed suicide in 1873. The Moule family may have inspired the Clares too in Tess. Iain Murray looks at Hardy, of course, in his little book The Undercover Revolution, but doesn't really bring this out.)

More here too