Memorable Quotations: Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet. From 1862 to 1867 he worked for an architect in London and later continued to practice architecture in Dorset. Meanwhile, he was writing poetry with little success. He then turned to novels as more salable, and by 1874 he was able to support himself by writing. One of the great English writers of the 19th century, he is noted for his Wessex novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891). His other major novels are The Return of the Native (1878) and Jude the Obscure (1896). Set in a harsh landscape, they are generally gloomy, naturalistic studies of character and environment. His other books include Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and Present (1901), The Dynasts (1903-1908), Time's Laughing Stocks (1909), Satires of Circumstances (1914), Moments of Vision (1917), Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922), Human Shows, Far Fantasies (1925), Winter Words (1928), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), Desperate Remedies (1871), Life's Little Ironies (1894), The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), Two on a Tower (1882), Wessex Tales (1888), The Woodlanders (1887) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872).