The novels and poems of Hardy are set in the land of his birth, Dorset, which he called by its ancient name of Wessex. Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure all draw their characters, their daily activities, the locales in which they are set, from the farmers and farriers, shopkeepers and schoolteachers, from the towns and fields and coastline, from the sights and...

Although Thomas Hardy is interred at Westminster Abbey, his heart is ever in his native Dorset. In this timeless program, Hardy experts James Gibson, Mike Murray, and Martin Seymour-Smith study the life of England's foremost regional novelist and poet par excellence while discussing many of his works, including Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles....

Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women? n this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy's life through the eyes of the women who made him - mother, sisters,...