Thomas Hardy Was An English Writer Who Was Born On June 2, 1840 In Hig

Thomas Hardy was an English Writer who was born on June 2, 1840 in Higher Brockhampton Doretshire, England (Something About the Author 129). Hardy wrote form personal knowledge and experiences, his characters were real people of the time and settings consisted of places he had been. Many Things influenced Hardy's writings throughout his life including his early life, work experiences and his first wife Emma Gifford Thomas Hardy did not begin his education until late in his childhood. He started to go to school at the age of eight years old and continued on through public school for eight more years. Following these eight years of general schooling Thomas went off to London to study at Kings College for five years after which his father, a stonemason, apprenticed him early to a local architect engaged in restoring old churches. The Royal Institute of British Architects awarded him with a medal because of the excellent work he had done as an architect (Dorset May 12, 1999). Thomas inherited his fathers business, but decided to give it to his brother Henry to take care of, which gave him more free time towards his passion of writing. Hardy worked for this architect for five years while at the same time took up poetry writing with little success. Thomas started writing many poems after he had completed his apprenticeship, but all were rejected except for one entitled "How I Built Myself A House." This particular piece of literature was initially written for the entertainment of his friends, yet somehow appeared in Chambers Journal in 1865 (Dorset May 12, 1999). After minimal success with poetry Thomas turned to novels as a more reasonable approach to financially supporting himself through writing. By 1874 he had achieved his goal and was now able to maintain a stable life. The novels he wrote were not directly written as books, but in fact they were mostly published in monthly sections through magazines (as were many famous books of the time). Hardy apparently had to partially fund his first story that was named "Desperate Remedies." "Under the Greenwood Tree" was his first truly successful novel that was published anonymously in 1872. (Dorset May 12, 1999) Hardy used many of the places he had been and things he had experienced so far in his life to write this particular story. For example: the local village school he attended when was a boy makes an appearance in the book. Thomas Hardy was considered to be a fairly sharp person and he noticed that the way he wrote "Under the Greenwood Tree" had a positive response, so he decided to continue to write in this manner. "In 1870 he met Emma Lavinia Gifford, sister-in-law of the vicar of St. Juliot in Cornwall to whom he had been sent to plan a church restoration." (Dorset May 12, 1999) At the time social standings usually affected who got married to whom, but in this case, despite her high social position, Emma and Thomas fell in love and became married four years later. After the success of his first novel Thomas was hired to write a novel for Tinsley's Magazine. The title was to be "A Pair of Blue Eyes" and in parts reflected his relationship with his wife and was published in 1873. This novel was well received by his audiences and after good reviews he began another story, "Far From the Madding Crowd." The setting was in Puddle Town where he had family, so he knew it well, but it was renamed in the story to Weatherbury; an example of how he used places he knew in his writings. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" was published in 1891 (Something About the Author 129) and is considered to be one of his greatest pieces ever written. This story was recently made into a movie (1979) named Tess because of how popular this proclaimed story had been. The final novel written by Thomas Hardy was "Jude the Obscure" in which he subsequently stated that "...sexual attraction is a natural force unopposable by human will" (Microsoft Encarta "Hardy, Thomas"). English critics very harshly criticized "Jude the Obscure" and his wife Emma was outraged at him because "...she took this as an attack on the sanctity of