Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) 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.^[2] Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas Hardy