# A pair of blue eyes

> One of Thomas Hardy's early novels, a tale of love and social divide set against the dramatic cliffs of the Cornish coast. A young woman's affections are caught between suitors, in a story famed for a moment of literal cliffhanging suspense.

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## About
On the windswept coast of Cornwall, where the cliffs fall sheer to the sea, Thomas Hardy sets one of his early and most personal novels. A Pair of Blue Eyes follows a spirited young woman whose heart, and whose prospects, are pulled in more than one direction.What it's aboutElfride Swancourt, a clergyman's daughter, finds herself courted amid the constraints of class and expectation, her romantic choices shadowed by questions of station and past attachment. As feeling contends with propriety, the story moves toward complications both social and, memorably, physical, including a scene of peril on the cliffs that gave the very word "cliffhanger" its literary charge.ThemesLove thwarted by class, the vulnerability of a woman's reputation, the gap between social ambition and honest feeling, and the indifferent grandeur of the natural world are all here in early Hardy form. The Cornish setting, drawn from his own courtship, lends the book a tender, autobiographical undertow.Why it still mattersThe novel shows Hardy finding the themes that would define his great later fiction, and its blend of romance, irony, and coastal drama holds up remarkably well. It remains a rewarding entry point into his world.Who it's forFor admirers of Hardy and of the Victorian novel, for lovers of romance shaded with realism, and for readers who enjoy a story where landscape and feeling rise together.

Sources and references
Verified references for this edition: Open Library, WorldCat, Thomas Hardy on Wikipedia.

## Specifications
- author: Thomas Hardy
- publisher: DotBooks
- imprint: DotBooks
- language: en
- binding: Perfect Bound
- pages: 216
- format: paperback
- oclc: 360556
- openlibrary: OL44987W