Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was a poet and a novelist. He wrote about the English countryside, in particular Dorset in south-west England, where he came from. His books include romantic love stories and show how farming life was changing quickly with the introduction of machines. The stories are set in Wessex, an ancient name for a region in south-west England. The places are based on real towns and villages. In the book Far from the Madding Crowd, the town of Casterbridge is the real town of Dorcester.

The last two Hardy novels, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, were both very controversial, particularly because of their treatment of sexual passion. Annoyed at the public reaction, Hardy spent the rest of his life writing poetry.

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain. 21^st Century Edition, Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 51