Thomas Hardy's Wessex Thomas Hardy's Wessex The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in "The Mayor of Casterbridge". In an 1895 preface to the novel "Far From the Madding Crowd" he described
Margaret Allan (romance author) Margaret Allan (romance author) Margaret Allan (1922 – 27 June 2017) was an author of romance novels from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. Her first success as an author came when she entered a short story for a "Yorkshire Evening Post" competition in 1973, which she won, and she began writing novels professionally in 1975. Allan continued writing well into her 80s, and during her long career published over 40 books. Many of her novels were set in her native county, including a cycle of four stories set in the fictional village of Nydd Beck. Allan described her works as "not