Thomas Hardy lived in the Victorian era (1837-1901), so named after Queen Victoria, who took the throne three years before his birth. During Hardy’s lifetime, there were titanic socioeconomic, political, and philosophical changes to the traditional English way of life. The Industrial Revolution—which began around 1780, but picked up speed in the first half of the 19th century—brought widescale technological and manufacturing innovations. By Hardy’s day, England was the world’s leading commercial nation with a complex trade network. Many ordinary people saw a somewhat increased standard of living by moving from the country to crowded cities, even in the dangerous work conditions of textile factories and coal mines. England’s population boomed, and the economy thrived—and worker mistreatment and exploitation were rampant. Distance from agricultural society also increasingly threatened the rural way of life and its traditions. Many English people—like Hardy—felt severed from their roots. This new reality of machines and factories—and the billowing pollution they produced—felt at violent odds with the natural world these people knew as children.

Technological and scientific innovations also threatened traditional understandings of religion and philosophy. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (1859), for example, made nature—which poets had previously romanticized—seem more callous, random, and cruel. Historical events also contributed to the sense of malaise and despair that permeates Hardy’s works.