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 Dinner The First Countess of Wessex by the local historian Barbara of the House of Grebe by the old surgeon The Marchioness of Stonehenge by the rural dean Lady Mottisfont by the sentimental member Part II-After Dinner The Lady Icenway by the churchwarden Squire Petrick's Lady by the crimson maltster Anna, Lady Baxby by the colonel The Lady Penelope by the man of family The Duchess Of Hamptonshire by the quiet gentleman The Honourable Laura by the spark Wessex 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.