Poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born in the third year of Queen Victoria's reign on June 2, 1840, in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England, to Thomas Hardy, a stonemason, and Jemima (Hand) Hardy. Hardy's father, who played the violin, and his mother, who loved books, encouraged their frail son's pursuit of literature early on. Hardy entered the new school at Lower Bockhampton in 1848 already knowing how to read. In 1856, Hardy apprenticed with architect John Hicks and, in 1862, he moved to London to work with Arthur Blomfield's architectural firm. He returned to Dorset in 1867 and worked again with Hicks, this time overseeing the restoration of old village churches. Hardy, however, read and wrote regularly all the while and, in 1865, he published his first piece, the short story "How I Built My House," which appeared in Chamber's Journal.

Although Hardy's first love was poetry, he made his reputation as a...