Thomas Hardy Biography

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1874), "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (1886), "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891), and "Jude the Obscure" (1895). Hardy's poetry, though prolific, was not as well received during his lifetime; it was rediscovered in the 1950s, when Hardy's poetry had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Philip Larkin.

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England.

Selected works:

• The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)
• Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (1872)
• Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
• The Return of the Native (1878)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character (1886)
• The Woodlanders (1887)
• Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented (1891)
• Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)
• Jude the Obscure (1895)
• A Pair of Blue Eyes: A Novel (1873)
• The Trumpet-Major (1880)
• Two on a Tower: A Romance (1882)