Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thomas Hardy was born on the 2nd of June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, a small hamlet east of Dorchester. His father worked as a stonemason and local builder while his mother Jemima Hand educated him until he turned eight years old.
Hardy published his first novel Desperate Remedies in 1871 followed by Under the Greenwood Tree in 1872. Both works appeared anonymously but marked his transition from architectural work to literary career.
Thomas Hardy married Emma Gifford on the 17th of September 1874 at St Peter's Church in Paddington London. He later married Florence Emily Dugdale in 1914 who was thirty-nine years younger than himself.
Thomas Hardy died at Max Gate just after nine pm on the 11th of January 1928 from cardiac syncope with old age as contributing factor. Compromise reached where heart buried at Stinsford while ashes placed in Poets' Corner.
John Cowper Powys dedicated Wood and Stone to Hardy acknowledging greatest poet and novelist of their age. Musical settings included works by Gerald Finzi Benjamin Britten Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.