1910, Hardy had been appointed a Member of the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was nominated again for the prize 11 years later. Hardy and the theatre Hardy's interest in the theatre dated from the 1860s. He corresponded with various would-be adapters over the years, including Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and Jack Grein and Charles Jarvis in the same decade. Neither adaptation came to fruition, but Hardy showed he was potentially enthusiastic about such a project. One play that was performed, however, caused him a certain amount of pain. His experience of the controversy and lukewarm critical reception that had surrounded his and Comyns Carr's adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd in 1882 left him wary of the damage that adaptations could do to his literary reputation. So it is notable that, in 1908, he so readily and enthusiastically became involved with a local amateur group, at the time known as the Dorchester Dramatic and Debating Society, but that would become the Hardy Players. His reservations about adaptations of his novels meant he was initially at some pains to disguise his involvement in the play. However, the international success of the play, The Trumpet Major, led to a long and successful collaboration between Hardy and the Players over the remaining years of his life. Indeed, his play The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) was written to be performed by the Hardy Players. Later years From the 1880s, Hardy became increasingly involved in campaigns to save ancient buildings from destruction, or destructive modernisation, and he became an early member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. His correspondence refers to his unsuccessful efforts to prevent major alterations to the parish church at Puddletown, close to his home at Max Gate. He became a frequent visitor at Athelhampton House, which he knew from his teenage years, and in his letters he encouraged the owner, Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, to conduct the restoration of that building in a sensitive way. In 1914, Hardy was one of fifty-three leading British authors—including H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—who signed their names to the “Authors' Declaration”, justifying Britain’s involvement in the First World War. This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime,