Thomas Hardy, one of the greatest Victorian novelists and the author of Tess D'Urbervilles, was born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bockhampton, located in Southwestern England. ... He lived close to rural life and Wessex was the fictionalized region of southwest England in which Hardy set all of his fiction. ... Tess of the D"Urbervilles is Hardy's saddest story of rural troubles. ... It is the twelfth novel published by Thomas Hardy and also one of his greatest works. ... Virtually Tess is Hardy's charge of the abject treatment of lower class women in Victorian societ...

• Word Count: 1221
• Approx Pages: 5

Thomas Hardy, the author, defends her as "A Pure Woman- until the end despite what views society took on him. ... Hardy defended Tess as one of the "good women-. ... Hardy in all the writings he does regarding this book defends Tess. ... (Hardy) Hardy believes that was not stripped of her purity when Alec first raped her. ...

• Word Count: 1929
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

The novels of Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas Hardy were read not merely by a literary elite, but widely throughout the expanding middle class and, particularly in the case of Dickens, by the working class as well. ...

• Word Count: 6746
• Approx Pages: 27