34 Facts About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas worked as a stonemason and local builder, and married his mother Jemima in Beaminster, towards the end of 1839.

Thomas Hardy worked on the design of the new church at nearby Athelhampton, situated just opposite Athelhampton House where he painted a watercolour of the Tudor gatehouse while visiting his father, who was repairing the masonry of the dovecote.

Thomas Hardy moved to London in 1862 where he enrolled as a student at King's College London.

Thomas Hardy won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association.

Thomas Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority.

Thomas Hardy was attracted to Matthew Arnold's and Leslie Stephen's ideal of the urbane liberal freethinker.

In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Thomas Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford, whom he married in Kensington in late 1874.

In 1914, Thomas Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior.

Thomas Hardy remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry.

In 1910, Thomas Hardy had been appointed a Member of the Order of Merit and was for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Thomas Hardy was nominated again for the prize 11 years later.

Thomas Hardy 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.

Thomas Hardy's correspondence refers to his unsuccessful efforts to prevent major alterations to the parish church at Puddletown, close to his home at Max Gate.

Thomas Hardy 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.

Thomas Hardy then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith, who felt that The Poor Man and the Lady would be too politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future.

Thomas Hardy subsequently destroyed the manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work.

Elements of Thomas Hardy's fiction reflect the influence of the commercially successful sensation fiction of the 1860s, particularly the legal complications in novels such as Desperate Remedies, Far from the Madding Crowd and Two on a Tower.

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy first introduced the idea of calling the region in the west of England, where his novels are set, Wessex.

Subsequently, Thomas Hardy moved from London to Yeovil, and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native.

In 1880, Thomas Hardy published his only historical novel, The Trumpet-Major.

In Two on a Tower, for example, Thomas Hardy takes a stand against these rules of society with a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class.

In 1898, Thomas Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years.

Irony is an important element in a number of Thomas Hardy's poems, including "The Man He Killed" and "Are You Digging on My Grave".

Larkin included 27 poems by Hardy compared with only nine by T S Eliot in his edition of the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973.

Thomas Hardy was baptised at the age of five weeks and attended church, where his father and uncle contributed to music.

Thomas Hardy did not attend the local Church of England school, instead being sent to Mr Last's school, three miles away.

Thomas Hardy frequently conceived of, and wrote about, supernatural forces, particularly those that control the universe through indifference or caprice, a force he called The Immanent Will.

Thomas Hardy showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and spirits.

Thomas Hardy corresponded with and visited Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell at Wenlock Abbey and many of Lady Catherine's books are inspired by Thomas Hardy, who was very fond of her.

Thomas Hardy has been a significant influence on Nigel Blackwell, frontman of the post-punk British rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, who has often incorporated phrases by or about Thomas Hardy into his song lyrics.

In 1912, Thomas Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:.

Thomas Hardy produced minor tales; one story, The Spectre of the Real was written in collaboration with Florence Henniker.

Thomas Hardy's works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition.