Formerly a prize-winning architectural student, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), went on to become a prolific novelist and poet. Against the backdrop of the 'partly real, partly dream-country' of Wessex in which so many of his novels are set, Two on a Tower explores a range of nineteenth-century concerns: sexuality, class, history, Darwinism, science and religion.Hardy's other novels Under the Greenwood Tree, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are also published in the Penguin English Library.