o. Hardy's first novel,The Poor Man and the Lady,finished by 1867,failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts ofthe novel remain.He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend,Victorian poet andnovelist George Meredith.Desperate Remedies(1871)and Under the Greenwood Tree(1872)werepublished anonymously.In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes,a novel drawingon Hardy's courtship ofhis first wife,was not published his own name.The term "cliffhanger"is considered to haveoriginated with the serialised version ofthis story(which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873)in which Henry Knight. one ofthe protagonists,is left literally hangingoffa cliff. Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd(1874),his next novel.It was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work andpursue a literary career.Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels. The Hardys moved from Londonto Yeovil and thento Sturminster Newton,where he wrote The Returnofthe Native (1878).In 1885,they moved for the last time,to Max Gate,a 10Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend, Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was not published his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of this story (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff. Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his next novel. It was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels. The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1885, they moved for the last time, to Max Gate, a 10’ 10’