One of England's greatest and most prodigious writers, a novelist and poet. A Victorian realist and romantic, he was inspired by Wordsworth, Dickens and Swinburne. His novels were in the Gothic tradition and were shocking to a conservative Victorian readership. His work was often criticised severely by contemporary critics, which 'wounded' Hardy deeply. He however inspired generations of writers who admired his work such as J M Barrie, D H Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, A E Housman, H G Wells, Siegfried Sassoon, George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Wolfe, Robert Graves, John Betjeman and Philip Larkin.