Thomas hardy

wrote poetry throughout his life, and regarded himself primarily as

a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898.

went to his first school at Bockhampton at age eight.

For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester. Here he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862; there he enrolled as a student at King's College, London.

whom he married in 1874. Although they later became estranged,

her death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him, and his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. However, he remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry.

at Max Gate just after 9 pm on 11 January

1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed. Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and notebooks.

by 1867, failed to find a publisher. After he abandoned

his first novel, Hardy wrote two new ones that he hoped would have more commercial appeal, Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) which he decided to publish anonymously.

on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was published under

his own name. Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his next novel. The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). Then he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), and Tess of the d'Urbervilles(1891).

literature by the 1900s, with several highly successful novels behind

him. Even so, he felt disgust at the public reception of two of his greatest works and gave up writing fiction altogether. Other novels written by Hardy include Two on a Tower, a romance story set in the world of astronomy.