Hardy Thomas

Hardy, Thomas (b. 1840), novelist, was born in Dorsetshire. He studied architecture with considerable success, but abandoned it in favour of literature. The scene of his novels, of which Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) was the first to give him a wide reputation, is generally laid in the south-western counties. They are remarkable chiefly for their graphic delineation of rustic humour, but are rarely without an undercurrent of tragedy.