Far from the madding crowd

I'm now reading 'Far from the madding crowd'. I saw the 1967 movie with the ravishing Julie Christie in the lead. This remake with Carey Mulligan is so beautiful. I only just now found out that Thomas Hardy had this serialized in 12 parts in Cornhill magazine, the editor at that time was Sir Leslie Stephen who had a hand in shaping the novel. Who was Leslie Stephen? He was the father of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf and Cornhill magazine was started by Leslie Stephen's father in law, William Thackeray, another English literary great. I have a huge collection of books on the Bloomsbury group whose founding members were Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. I've visited Charleston farmhouse where Vanessa Bell lived for many years with her gay lover, the painter, Duncan Grant and with whom she had a child, Angelica Garnett.