A Group of Noble Dames is an 1891 collection of short stories written by Thomas Hardy. The stories are contained by a frame narrative in which ten members of a club each tell one story about a noble dame in the 17th or 18th century.Part I-Before DinnerThe First Countess of Wessex by the local historianBarbara of the House of Grebe by the old surgeonThe Marchioness of Stonehenge by the rural deanLady Mottisfont by the sentimental memberPart II-After DinnerThe Lady Icenway by the churchwardenSquire Petrick's Lady by the crimson maltsterAnna, Lady Baxby by the colonelThe Lady Penelope by the man of familyThe Duchess Of Hamptonshire by the quiet gentlemanThe Honourable Laura by the sparkWessex Tales is an 1888 collection of tales written by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, many of which are set before Hardy's birth in 1840.In the various short stories, Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the use grammar as a diluted form of thought, the disparities created by the role of class status in determining societal rank, the stance of women in society and the severity of even minor diseases causing the rapid onset of fatal symptoms prior to the introduction of sufficient medicinal practices.