About the poet• lived from 1840 to 1928. He was the son of a mason, from Dorset, s- w of England. He studied to be an architect, and worked in this profession for many years. He also began to write prose fiction..• Thomas Hardy - his first marriage, long and mostly unhappy, was to Emma Gifford. They married in 1874. Emma died in 1912, in 1914 Hardy married Florence Dugdale. Hardy died in 1928, aged 87. He had asked to be laid beside Emma, but his body was buried in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey.