Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
He was born at Higher Bockhampton, in Dorset.
His father, was a builder, while his mother Jemmina was in domestic service. it was she who encouraged him to find the best education available and according to the limited financial resources of the family.
Hardy left school at 16 to become apprentice to a local architect. In 1861 he moved to London to work as an assistant architect for 5 years.
By 1871, when his first novel Desperate Remedies was published, he lived in Dorset and stayed there for the rest of his life. He became engaged with Emma Gifford in 1871 and, in the course of same year, Far From the Madding Crowd was published.
This last, together with Tess of the D'Ubervilles and with Jude the Obscure, is probably the best known of many novels Hardy published in a span of 26 years between 1871 and 1897.
Throughout his whole career as a novelist, Hardy was also writing poetry, though he didn't publish it until after his last novel The Well Beloved was published in 1897. Hardy published 9 volumes of verses,among which his last Winter Words released posthumously. His poetry seems at first glance to belong more to Browning or Meredith than to that of Swinburne, and certaimly there is nothing of his intoxicated incantations. However, if Swinburne was seduced by mere language, it could be said that Hardy was seduced by mere ideas. In this respect, his verses only truly come alive when he is not content to describe a contrived situation as an example of irony, but by restraint move from illustration to illumination, letting the poem build up an area of suggestion that echoes on long after the primary meaning has been conveyed. He also published a three parts- drama in verses on Napoleonic Wars, called The Dynasts published between 1904 and 1908.

links: - The Tomas Hardy Association - Tomas Hardy website