Hardy's short stories and novel series are best remembered for their meticulous portrayal of life troubled by social evils, human suffering and struggle against injustice and ill-comprehended laws.
 Most of his novels are set in a semi-fictional place Wessex, a large area of south-west England. His most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure highlights the prejudice and hypocrisy of Victorian society on sexual conduct. 
In another book Town on a Tower, Hardy displays a firm stand against an orthodox and conventional path for attaining love. Fate plays an important role in most of his books and remains the centre of most of his works.
 His characters always find themselves trapped and are often defeated by the fate and unforeseen conditions. 
His books portray people fighting against the cruelty of life, injustice and badly framed laws that constrain the social growth.