Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy based the fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester, and his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is set there.
Hardy's childhood home is to the east of the town, and his town house, Max Gate, is owned by the National Trust and open to the public.
Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford.

William Barnes, the West Country dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town.
There is a statue of Hardy and one of Barnes in the town centre; Barnes outside St. Peter's Church, and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads.

John Cowper Powys's novel Maiden Castle (1936) is set in Dorchester and Powys intended it to be "a Rival of the Mayor of Casterbridge.
Powys had lived in Dorchester as a child, between May 1880 and Christmas 1885, when his father was a curate there.
Then, after returning from America in June 1934, he had lived at 38 High East Street, Dorchester, from October 1934 until July 1935, when he moved to Wales.
The building is commemorated with a plaque erected by the Dorchester Heritage Committee, but giving the date of his residence as 1936.
Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy based the fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester, and his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is set there. Hardy's childhood home is to the east of the town, and his town house, Max Gate, is owned by the National Trust and open to the public. Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford.
William Barnes, the West Country dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town. There is a statue of Hardy and one of Barnes in the town centre; Barnes outside St. Peter's Church, and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads.
John Cowper Powys's novel Maiden Castle (1936) is set in Dorchester and Powys intended it to be "a Rival of the Mayor of Casterbridge. Powys had lived in Dorchester as a child, between May 1880 and Christmas 1885, when his father was a curate there. Then, after returning from America in June 1934, he had lived at 38 High East Street, Dorchester, from October 1934 until July 1935, when he moved to Wales. The building is commemorated with a plaque erected by the Dorchester Heritage Committee, but giving the date of his residence as 1936.
Dorchester, Dorset