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.

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.

though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads, he "was never conventional," and "persistently experiment with different, often invented, stanza forms and metres, and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction".

Many of Hardy's poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and "the perversity of fate", but the best of them present these themes with "a carefully controlled elegiac feeling" and irony.

Thomas Hardy, the son of a stonemason, was born in Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester, in 1840. At eight years of age he went to the local school. His mother was determined that he had a good education, and after a year arranged for him to study Latin, French and German at a school in Dorchester. At the age of 16 Hardy he was articled to John Hicks, an architect. Once qualified, he moved to London and found work with a company that specialized in church architecture. In his spare-time he continued his education with visits to the theatre, opera and art galleries. It was at this time he began to write poetry, and although he submitted them to several magazines, they were all rejected. 

Hardy`s first novel, Desperate Memories, was published in 1871. The book received little attention from the critics and sold badly. So did his next two novels, Under the Greenwood Tree (1873) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1872). 

Hardy`s first success came in 1874 with the serialization of Far From the Madding Crowd in the Cornhill Magazine. This was followed by other popular novels such as The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the D`Urbervilles (1891), The Well-Beloved (1892) and Jude the Obscure (1896) 

Although Jude the Obscure sold over 20,000 copies in three months, Hardy was upset by the reviews the book received. He commented that he had reached "the end of prose" and now concentrated on poetry. Over the next thirty years Hardy published eight volumes: Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and Present (1902), Time`s Laughingstocks (1909), Satires of Circumstance (1914), Moments of Vision (1917), Late Lyrics (1922), Human Shows (1925), Winter Words (1928). this was to be his last publication as he died the same year.