Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet whose work is set largely in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, based on his native Dorset. Trained first as an architect, he turned to fiction, producing novels including Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. After critical controversy over his later novels, he devoted his final decades chiefly to poetry, publishing several volumes of verse. His writing examines rural life, social constraint, chance, and religious doubt. He died at Max Gate, the house he designed near Dorchester; his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey and his heart at Stinsford.