Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

About Thomas Hardy and his Wessex

Thomas hardy was born in 1840 and died 1928. During his 88-years old life he wrote fifteen novels and one he never published. He also wrote over 900 poems. He wrote and published four volumes of short stories.

He was born, and lived the best part of his life, near Dorchester, the county town of Dorset and Devon, Somerset, Cornwall, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxford. To the section of south-west England he gave the fictional name Wessex, called his first book of poetry ‘Wessex poetry’ and his first collection of short stories he called ‘Wessex tails’. He even called his dog ‘Wessex’.

Thomas hardy was born in a cottage which had been built for his grandfather and was brought up buy his Mum, Dad and Nan. The cottage was an isolated building on the edge of a wild heath-land, for which Thomas hardy, in one of his novels, invented the name ‘Egdon heath’. The family Hardy was made up of a Mum, Dad, a gifted boy Thomas, two sisters and a brother.

The children had to make their own fun and entertainment. So they would usually listen to their father’s tales. They would involve danger, excitement, interesting characters and a dramatic ending.

Thomas hardy based some novels on his relative’s storeys. The telling of such tales was a regular pastime for the small family, and as he grew up, he learned to shape them for a wider audience.

For instance, when Thomas was still a boy, he knew he wanted to be a writer.

As a child, the lady of the manor at the local mansion particularly favoured Thomas. She was childless, and showed special interest in Thomas, treating him almost like a child of her own, and inviting him to her grand house.

Thomas’s mother resented this and according to Thomas hardy, she openly defied the lady.

No one knows what exactly happened, but it is certainly true that Thomas’s mother took young Thomas away from the village school, which the lady had founded, and sent him to a school in Dorchester. Thomas Hardy’s mother had a strong will of her own, unlike the heroine of ‘the son’s veto’ who all allows her life to be ruled by the middle- class people. Her marriage has put her among, and, in the end, to be fatally frustrated by the snobbery of her own son.