 The Hardy Players (now re-formed in 2005) was an amateur group from Dorchester who re-enacted Hardy’s novels.Bugler was highly acclaimed, but she was prevented from taking the London stage part by Hardy's wife, Florence, who was jealous of her; Hardy had said that young Gertrude was the true incarnation of the Tess he had imagined.Years before writing the novel, Hardy had been inspired by the beauty of her mother Augusta Way, then an 18-year-old milkmaid, when he visited Augusta's father's farm in Bockhampton.