A pair of blue eyes.

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 about

Elfride 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.

Themes

Love 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 matters

The 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 for

For 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.