Biography of Thomas Hardy
Biography of Thomas hardy
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet who set much of his work in Wessex, his name for the counties of southwestern England. He initially pursued architecture, his father's work, but after finding success in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd(1874), he gave it up and wrote with abandon. His works ultimately question the Victorian status quo and asks what else would make more sense.
Thomas Hardy’s life can be divided into three phases. The first phase (1840-1870) embraces childhood, adolescence, apprenticeship, first marriage, early poems and his first unpublished novel. The second phase (1871-1897) is marked by intensive writing, which resulted in the publication of 14 novels and a number of short stories. In the third phase (1898-1928), the period of the writer’s rising fame, he abandoned writing novels and returned to poetry.
Childhood and youth
Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in a brick and thatch two-storey cottage in the hamlet called Higher Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, about three miles east of Dorchester, the county town of Dorset. With the exception of five years, Hardy lived all his long life in his home county. Both of Hardy’s parents were of Dorset origin. His father, also named Thomas, was a self-employed master mason and building contractor. The Hardys were an old Dorset family, which had descended from the Le Hardy family residing in the Isle of Jersey since the 15th century. One of the ancestors, Le Clement Hardy, was lieutenant-governor of Jersey in 1488. Another kinsman, Sir Thomas Hardy (1769-1839) was Admiral Horatio Nelson’s aide and best friend. At the turn of the eighteenth century the family experienced a rapid economic decline.
Hardy’s mother, Jemima, was a former maidservant and cook. She came from a poor family, but she had acquired from her mother a love of reading, and her literary tastes included Latin poets and French romances in English translation. She provided for her son’s
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet who set much of his work in Wessex, his name for the counties of southwestern England. He initially pursued architecture, his father's work, but after finding success in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd(1874), he gave it up and wrote with abandon. His works ultimately question the Victorian status quo and asks what else would make more sense.
Thomas Hardy’s life can be divided into three phases. The first phase (1840-1870) embraces childhood, adolescence, apprenticeship, first marriage, early poems and his first unpublished novel. The second phase (1871-1897) is marked by intensive writing, which resulted in the publication of 14 novels and a number of short stories. In the third phase (1898-1928), the period of the writer’s rising fame, he abandoned writing novels and returned to poetry.
Childhood and youth
Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in a brick and thatch two-storey cottage in the hamlet called Higher Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, about three miles east of Dorchester, the county town of Dorset. With the exception of five years, Hardy lived all his long life in his home county. Both of Hardy’s parents were of Dorset origin. His father, also named Thomas, was a self-employed master mason and building contractor. The Hardys were an old Dorset family, which had descended from the Le Hardy family residing in the Isle of Jersey since the 15th century. One of the ancestors, Le Clement Hardy, was lieutenant-governor of Jersey in 1488. Another kinsman, Sir Thomas Hardy (1769-1839) was Admiral Horatio Nelson’s aide and best friend. At the turn of the eighteenth century the family experienced a rapid economic decline.
Hardy’s mother, Jemima, was a former maidservant and cook. She came from a poor family, but she had acquired from her mother a love of reading, and her literary tastes included Latin poets and French romances in English translation. She provided for her son’s