French writer, counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary [1857], and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and ...

British novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement. He captured the epoch just before the railways and the industrial revolution changed the English countryside. His works are pessimistic and bitterly ironic, and his writing is rough but capable of immense power.
His first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript. Only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend, Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate Remedies [1871] and Under the Greenwood Tree [1872] were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a story ...