Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840. He was one of the most renowned poets and novelists in English literary history. Hardy wrote fourteen novels, three volumes of short stories, and several poems between the years 1871 and 1897, including his greatest novels Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D'Urbevilles. These received negative reviews at the time, but have become true classics.
Tom Paulin was born in Leeds in 1949 but grew up in Belfast, and was educated at the universities of Hull and Oxford. He has published nine collections of poetry as well as a Selected Poems 1972-1990, two major anthologies, two versions of Greek drama, and several critical works, including The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style and, most recently, Crusoe's Secret: The Aesthetics of Dissent. His most recent collection of poems is Love's Bonfire (2012). Well known for his appearances on the BBC's Newsnight Review, he is also the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.
