Wessex Novels and Tales of Thomas Hardy are set in the south and southwest of England, in the area Hardy named "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. These tales depict strong characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.
Wessex Novels:
Under the Greenwood Tree
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Return of the Native
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Woodlanders
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Jude the Obscure
A Pair of Blue Eyes
The Trumpet-Major
Two on a Tower
The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid
The Well-Beloved
Wessex Tales:
An Imaginative Woman
The Three Strangers
The Withered Arm
Fellow-Townsmen
Interlopers at the Knap
The Distracted Preacher
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 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. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
His most famous novels include Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure.