When Hardy left his career as architect, he did so with a contract for 11 monthly installments of a tale, A Pair of Blue Eyes, in the Cornhill Magazine. His reputation as one of England’s newer novelists sustained the Hardy family from that time on. The next novel, Far from the Maddening Crowd (1874), introduced the Wessex area setting, which also is the setting for Tess. The next two novels, The Return of the Native (1878) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), established Hardy as a formidable writer.
Hardy published two more novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), which were his last long fiction works. The last novels challenged the sensibilities of Victorian readers with situations that ruffled many a Victorian feather: immoral sex, murder, illegitimate children, and the unmarried living together. Heated debate and criticism over these two books helped Hardy decide that he would rather write poetry. In fact, so stung was he by the criticism of his works that Hardy did not write another novel.
Hardy wrote short stories, poems, and plays for the rest of his life. Two further volumes of poetry and short stories appeared, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars (1903–08) and Winter Words (1928), a volume of verse. Hardy was quite prolific during this period, writing some 900 poems on a variety of subjects. In 1912, Hardy’s wife, Emma, died, ending 20 years of “domestic estrangement.” In 1914, Hardy married Florence Emily Dugdale, with whom he lived until his death on January 11, 1928.
Hardy’s body was buried at Westminster Abbey in Poet’s Corner, while his heart was buried in Stinson, England, near the graves of his ancestors and his first wife, Emma. His second wife was later buried near her husband.
