Thomas Hardy

I hope to write a blog about Thomas Hardy soon. He was a poet and novelist, born in 1840 in Dorset and coming from a relatively humble background. His father was a builder and he himself trained as an architecht. He wrote about the poor people of his native land. He called the region of Dorset Wessex and wrote about farmers, builders, labourers, milkmaids and the like. He was brought up in the Church of England but as he grew up, he lost his religious faith. He wrote many novels, but as he grew older he began to criticise society, and the church and the Victorian sexual mores.The public and critics were shocked by his increasingly scandalous writing, as they saw it, and after the publication of his last Novel Jude the Obscure, he gave up novels and concentrated on writing poetry. More will follow