Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

Thomas Hardy, 1918 (etched by William Strong)

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in a hamlet called Higher Bockhampton in Dorset, three miles from the town of Dorchester. His father, Thomas Snr, was an independent builder and his mother, Jemima, at the time of their marriage was in domestic service. Thomas Jr, was encouraged by his mother, as all his siblings were, to seek the best education that was available to them given the limited financial resources of the family.

Hardy left school at the age of 16, becoming apprenticed to a local architect. He moved to London in 1861 and worked as an architect's assistant. He remained in London for five years. By 1871, when his first novel, Desperate Remedies, was published, he was again living in Dorset, and he made his home there for the rest of his life. He became engaged to Emma Gifford in 1871, having met her during a visit to Cornwall. Hardy and Emma Gifford were married in 1874, the same year that Far From the Madding Crowd was published. This, together with Tess of the D'Ubervilles and Jude the Obscure is probably the best known of the many novels Hardy published in the twenty-six years between 1871 and 1897.

Throughout his career as a novelist Hardy was also writing poetry, although he didn't begin publishing his poetry until after the last of his novels, The Well Beloved was published in 1897. Hardy published a total of 9 volumes of verse, with the last, Winter Words being published posthumously. He also published a 3-part verse drama about the Napoleonic Wars, called The Dynasts, which was published between 1904 and 1908.