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Janice Hadlow is Controller of BBC2 and BBC4. In her previous roles as joint Head of History at the BBC and Head of History at Channel 4, she was responsible for commissioning some of the most influential history series of our time from, among others, Simon Schama, David Starkey and Niall Ferguson. This is her first book.

Araminta Hall has worked as a journalist since 1994 at some of Emap’s biggest titles, including Bliss Magazine and New Woman. Since 2000 she has freelanced for a variety of magazines and national newspapers. She lives in Brighton with her husband and three children.

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Dorchester, Dorset. He enrolled as a student in King’s College, London, but never felt at ease there, seeing himself as socially inferior. This preoccupation with society, particularly the declining rural society, featured heavily in Hardy’s novels, with many of his stories set in the fictional county of Wessex. Since his death in 1928, Hardy has been recognised as a significant poet, influencing The Movement poets in the 1950s and 1960s.