Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 and wrote both poetry and novels, including Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. He died in 1928.
Tim Dolin is Research Fellow in the Australia Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, WA. He is the author of books and articles on Victorian fiction, and has edited three of Hardy's novels for Penguin. He has just completed George Eliot for Oxford's 'Authors in Context' series, and is working on a study of the significance of British and American popular fiction in the development of Australian culture.