Essay, Biography or Paragraph on “Thomas Hardy” great author complete biography for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Thomas Hardy

(1840 – 1928)

Thomas Hardy was an English poet and novelist, famous for his depictions of the imaginary county Wessex. Hardy’s work reflected his stoical pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life. Thomas Hardy was born Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester on June 2, 1840. His father was a master mason and building contractor. Hardy’s mother, whose tastes included Latin poets and French romances, provided for his education. After schooling in

Dorchester, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect. He worked in an office, which specialized in restoration of churches. In 1874 Hardy married Emma Lavinia Gifford.. At the age of 22 Hardy moved to London and started to write poems, which idealized the rural life. In 1867 Hardy left London for the family home ‘in Dorset, and resumed work briefly with Hicks in Dorchester. Unable to find a public for his poetry, Hardy turned to fiction. His first novel, The Poor Man And The Lady, was written in 1867, but the book was rejected by many publishers and he destroyed the manuscript. His first book that gained notice was Far From The Madding Crowd (1874). After its success Hardy devoted himself entirely to writing and produced a series of novels, among them The Return Of The Native (1878) and The Mayor Of Casterbridge (1886).’ Tess- Of The D’urbervilles (1891) came into conflict with Victorian morality. Hardy’s next novel, Jude The ObscUre (1895). aroused even more debate. The story dramatized the conflict be-tween carnal and spiritual life. In 1896, disturbed by the public uproar over the unconventional subjects of two of his greatest novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure , Hardy announced that he would never write fiction again. During the remainder of his life, Hardy wrote several collections of poems. His gigantic panorama of the Napoleonic Wars, The Dynasts com-posed between 1903 and 1908, was mostly in blank verse. Hardy succeeded on the death of his friend George Meredith to the presidency of the Society of Authors in 1909. King George V conferred on him the Order .of Merit and he received in 1912 the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature. Emma Hardy died in 1912 and in 1914 Hardy married his secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale. From 1920 through 1927 Hardy worked on his autobiography which was disguised as the work of Florence Hardy volumes (1928 and 1930).

Hardy died in Dorchester, Dorset, on January 11, 1928. His ashes were cremated in Dorchester and buried with impressive ceremonies in the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. Hardy’s Winter Words appeared posthumously in 1928.