A Pair of Blue Eyes is celebrated for its central scene which shocked and stimulated Victorian readers. Forever after it caused Hardy to be embroiled in arguments concerning the sexual morality of his novels in which he strove to show the stifling effects of social conventions on the human spirit. Rich with biographical echoes, the story reveals the full emergence of the schematic ironies which characterize Hardy's later great works, and gives a suggestion of the tragic philosophy that came to dominate all he wrote.The loving nature of the blue-eyed heroine,Elfride Swancourt, pervades this early novel which has a singular, unpolished charm.

Thomas Hardy"s third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, was much overshadowed by the popularity of Far from the Madding Crowd which immediately succeeded it, but it is none the less a work of distinction in a highly distinguished oeuvre. Initially serialized in Tinsley"s Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873, the novel attracted attention and wide admiration. Hardy classified his own works and placed A Pair of Blue Eyes in the group which he called "Romances and Fantasies".

The novel has a simple but effective plot that is reliant on fairly improbable coincidence, although this is used for the first time in a way that shows the full emergence of the schematic ironies which characterise Hardy"s later great works and many of his short stories,and gives a suggestion of the tragic philosophy that came to dominate all he wrote. Writing under the pressure of serialisation, Hardy drew on autobiographical material, and returned to an already favourite theme of "the poor man and the lady". The action concerns Stephen Smith, a young architect who goes to the village of Endelstowe in Cornwall to restore the church and falls in love with the vicar"s beautiful blue-eyed daughter, Elfride Swancourt. Despite Elfride"s initial reciprocation, Stephen"s suit is blighted because of his lowly social origins. His much older friend and mentor Henry Knight becomes engaged to Elfride once Stephen is off the scene, but this affair too is doomed. Stephen"s circumstances and his reasons for going to Cornwall are directly based on Hardy"s own experience, and his courtship of Elfride finds a parallel in Hardy"s courtship of Emma Gifford.

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40