Fun Facts Friday: Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (2 June, 1840 – 11 January, 1928) was an English poet and novelist. Mr. Hardy is considered a Victorian realist.

Books by Thomas Hardy*

1)       Mr. Hardy’s novels were very critical of Victorian society, especially on the way rural British people were treated.

2)      William Wordsworth, a well-known English Romantic poet that helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature, was one of the people who influenced Mr. Hardy the most.

3)      Even though now known for his novels, Mr. Hardy considered himself as a poet first.

4)      Many of his novels are set in the region of Wessex, a fictional county based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Wessex includes real English counties.

5)      The BBC’s survey The Big Read listed two of Thomas Hardy’s novels: Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd.

6)      Thomas Hardy’s mother, Jemima, was well read and educated him until the age of eight, when he started formal schooling.

7)      Mr. Hardy’s formal education ended at the age of 16, since his family did not have the funds to send him to a university. He became an apprentice to a local architect named James Hicks.

8)      As an architect, Mr. Harding won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association.

9)      Mr. Hardy was nominated eleven times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

10)   The last poem Mr. Hardy wrote was dictated to his wife on his deathbed.

Books by Thomas Hardy*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account