Thomas Hardy was born
at Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, on June 2,
1840, where his father worked as a master mason and
builder. From his father he gained an appreciation of music, and
from his mother an appetite for learning and the delights of the
countryside about his rural home.
Hardy was frail as a
child, and did not start at the village school until he was eight
years old. One year later he transferred to a new school in the
county town of Dorchester. At the age of 16 Hardy helped his
father with the architectural drawings for a restoration of
Woodsford Castle. The owner, architect James Hicks, was impressed
by the younger Hardy's work, and took him on as an apprentice.
Hardy later moved to
London to work for prominent architect Arthur Blomfield. He began
writing, but his poems were rejected by a number of publishers.
Although he enjoyed life in London, Hardy's health was poor, and
he was forced to return to Dorset.
In 1870 Hardy was
sent to plan a church restoration at St. Juliot in Cornwall.
There he met Emma Gifford, sister-in-law of the vicar of
St.Juliot. She encouraged him in his writing, and they were
married in 1874.
Hardy published his
first novel, Desperate Remedies
in 1871, to universal disinterest. But the following year Under the Greenwood Tree brought
Hardy popular acclaim for the first time. As with most of his
fictional works, Greenwood Tree incorporated real places
around Dorset into the plot, including the village school of
Higher Bockhampton that Hardy had first attended as a child.
The success of Greenwood
Tree brought Hardy a commission to write a serialized novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, for Tinsley's
Magazine. Once more Hardy drew upon real life, and the novel
mirrors his own courtship of Emma.
Hardy followed this
with Far From the Madding Crowd,
set in Puddletown (renamed Weatherby), near his birthplace. This
novel finally netted Hardy the success that enabled him to give
up his architectural practice and concentrate solely on writing.
The Hardys lived in
London for a short time, then in Yeovil, then in Sturminster
Newton (Stourcastle), which Hardy described as
"idyllic". It was at Sturminster Newton that Hardy
penned Return of the Native,
one of his most enduring works.
Finally the Hardys
moved to Dorchester, where Thomas designed their new house, Max
Gate, into which they moved in 1885. One year later Hardy
published The
Mayor of Casterbridge, followed in 1887 by The Woodlanders and in 1891 by one
of his best works, Tess of the
d'Urbervilles.
Tess provoked
interest, but his next work, Jude
the Obscure (1896), catapulted Hardy into the midst of
a storm of controversy. Jude outraged Victoria morality
and was seen as an attack upon the institution of marriage. Its
publication caused a rift between Thomas and Emma, who feared
readers would regard it as describing their own marriage.
Of course the
publicity did no harm to book sales, but reader's hid the book
behind plain brown paper wrappers, and the Bishop of Wakefield
burned his copy! Hardy himself was bemused by the reaction his
book caused, and he turned away from writing fiction with some
disgust.
For the rest of his
life Hardy focussed on poetry, producing several collections,
including Wessex Poems
(1898).
Emma Hardy died in November 1912, and was buried in
Stinsford churchyard. Thomas was stricken with guilt and remorse,
but the result was some of his best poetry, expressing his
feelings for his wife of 38 years.
All was not gloom,
however, for in 1914 Hardy remarried, to Florence Dugdale, his
secretary since 1912. Thomas Hardy died on January 11, 1928 at
his house of Max Gate in Dorchester. He had expressed the wish to
be buried beside Emma, but his wishes were only partly regarded;
his body was interred in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, and
only his heart was buried in Emma's grave at Stinsford.