Wonderful. Thank you everyone. Much appreciated.
In the light of the suggestions I have narrowed it down to Casterbridge, Tess and Madding Crowd. It appears that any of these is a good starting point. Fortuitously, I chanced upon an old 1950s copy of Tess in my father's library and I think I will go with that. There is another book which is a collection of Hardy's stories. It's titled The Distracted Preacher and other Tales. I will also go through it to get a taste of his short fiction.