Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born and educated in Dorchester. He embarked on a career in architecture which he was able to give up with the increasing success of his novels. He published sixteen novels, as well as many short stories and poems. After the hostile reaction to JUDE THE OBSCURE in 1895, he stopped writing fiction to concentrate on poetry. Sally Shuttleworth is a Lecturer in English at the University of Sheffield. She has written a book on George Eliot and 19th-century science.