Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 at Bockhampton, in Dorset, England. His father was a stonemason and builder of houses. Thomas was schooled at home by his mother until age eight whose interest was in Latin poetry and French romances. Then Thomas went to a local school for the next six years. At age sixteen, he was then apprenticed to an architect that resided in the area.

When he turned twenty two, he moved to London to work with an architect, who restored old churches. While in London, he also enrolled in King's College as a student and that is where he started to write. Thomas was not happy in London because of the class difference between him and the people he dealt with, so he moved back to Dorset. There, he continued practicing architecture and restoring old churches, as well as working on his writing. In 1874, he married Emma Lavinia Gifford, who was an influence in his work as a writer.

Thomas Hardy is well known for his novels which he thought were not as successful. There was so much controversy over the two that he thought were his best novels, that he decided to only write poetry from then on. He was fifty by that time. His well known books are The Poor Man and the Lady (1867), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the D'urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895), to name a few. His poetry collections included Wessx Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and Present (1901), Times Laughingstocks (1909). He died in 1928, but he wrote up until his death.