Hardy, the son of a stonemason and a working-class woman, was raised in Dorsetshire, an area he later fictionalized as Wessex in his novels. He went to school to age sixteen, after which he educated himself while being apprenticed as an architect. He taught himself Greek and Latin and aimed to become a minister, but lost his faith after reading Darwin and contemporary biblical criticism.
Hardy first wrote poetry, but soon turned to fiction, by which he was able
to support himself from his mid-thirties. Among his best-known novels
are Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895).
The reception of these works was so hostile, however, that he returned
to writing poetry for the remainder of his life. Much of his writing
represents the altered landscape that results from acceptance of the new
scientific and critical insights of the Victorian period, as well as the
frequently ironic position of human beings within that landscape.