Facts:   - death place: dorchester , dorset , england    - signature: thomas hardy signature.svg    - resting place: stinsford , westminster abbey -lrb- ashes -rrb- parish church -lrb- heart -rrb- poets ' corner    - caption: hardy between about 1910 and 1915    - notableworks: '' from the madding crowd '' , '' collected poems '' tess '' jude the obscure '' of the d'urbervilles '' , '' far    - influences: charles thomas gray , arthur schopenhauer dickens , charlotte brontë , george meredith ,    - death date: 11 january 1928    - spouse: emma dugdale -lrb- 1914 -- 28 -rrb- lavinia gifford -lrb- 1874 -- 1912 -rrb- florence      - influenced: philip , w.h. auden , w.d. snodgrass , john fowles , larkin robinson jeffers , siegfried sassoon , john cowper powys , d. h. lawrence , robert frost    - birth date: 2 june 1840    - name: thomas hardy    - movement: naturalism , victorian literature    - image: thomashardy_restored . jpg    - birth place: stinsford , dorset , england    - alma mater: king 's college london    - occupation: novelist , poet , and short story writer   Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of thomas hardy .

thomas hardy , om -lrb- 2 june 1840 -- 11 january 1928 -rrb- was an english novelist and poet .a victorian realist in the tradition of george eliot , he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by romanticism , especially william wordsworth .charles dickens was another important influence .like dickens , he was highly critical of much in victorian society , though hardy focused more on a declining rural society .while hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet , his first collection was not published until 1898 .initially , therefore , he gained fame as the author of novels , including `` far from the madding crowd '' -lrb- 1874 -rrb- , `` the mayor of casterbridge '' -lrb- 1886 -rrb- , `` tess of the d'urbervilles '' -lrb- 1891 -rrb- , and `` jude the obscure '' -lrb- 1895 -rrb- .however , beginning in the 1950s hardy has been recognised as a major poet ; he had a significant influence on the movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s , including philip larkin .most of his fictional works -- initially published as serials in magazines -- were set in the semi-fictional region of wessex .they explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances .hardy 's wessex is based on the medieval anglo-saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of dorset , wiltshire , somerset , devon , hampshire and much of berkshire , in southwest and south central england .