Thomas Hardy was born in Higher Bock-hampton, inDorsetshire, England, on July 2, 1840. His father and grandfather were master masons, and it was expected that he would be one also; but as a young man he excelled in his academic studies, learning Latin and Greek and studying poetry. At age sixteen, he left school to be an apprentice architect in nearbyDorchester.

In 1862, he moved toLondon to work with a noted architect. It was then that he started writing in his spare time. His first love was poetry, but he had trouble getting his work published. In 1868 he returned toDorset as an architect. He began writing novels, publishing the first one, Desperate Remedies, in 1871. The three novels that he wrote over the next three years were successful, so that after publishing Far From the Madding Crowd in serial form in 1874, he was able to quit architecture.

Hardy's work met...