In the later years of his long life, Thomas Hardy was probably the most famous English man of letters of his time, his reputation extending throughout the world. He is now generally regarded as both a major late-Victorian novelist and a major twentieth-century poet, and is the subject of more intense scholarly, critical, editorial, and biographical attention than ever before; as a result, knowledge and understanding of his life, personality, and literary achievement are continually increasing and deepening. Nor is his appeal restricted to academics or students: he has long been one of the most widely read of English novelists; ten thousand people tramp every year through the modest cottage that was his birthplace; and he now reaches a mass audience through film and television adaptations of his books.

The time and place of his birth determined the early experiences on which he was to draw...