A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy [PDF]
by InfoBooks
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy is one of the earliest novels from one of England's greatest storytellers. This 1873 love triangle set on the windswept Cornish coast introduced the world to the concept of the literal cliffhanger.
You can download this novel in PDF format for free and discover Hardy's gift for suspense and emotional complexity before he wrote his most celebrated works. It is a surprisingly accessible entry point into Hardy's fiction, full of vivid scenery and sharp observations about class and desire.
If you liked Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Far from the Madding Crowd, try this earlier work where Hardy was already sharpening the themes that would define his career. You will find the seeds of everything that made him a literary giant.
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
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Information: A Pair of Blue Eyes
- Author: Thomas Hardy
- Publication Date: 1873
- Main Characters:
- Elfride Swancourt: A beautiful, blue-eyed young woman of nineteen who lives with her father in a remote Cornish vicarage. She is charming and emotionally naive, torn between two suitors and unable to escape the consequences of her own honesty.
- Stephen Smith: A young architect's assistant of modest origins who falls deeply in love with Elfride. His social inferiority makes him unacceptable to her father despite his genuine devotion.
- Henry Knight: A London-based literary critic and essayist, older and more worldly than Stephen. He is intellectually dominant but emotionally rigid, demanding a purity from Elfride that proves impossible.
- Reverend Swancourt: Elfride's father, a snobbish country vicar who prizes social standing above all and whose disapproval of Stephen sets the tragedy in motion.
- Brief Summary: A Pair of Blue Eyes follows Elfride Swancourt, a spirited young woman living in a remote Cornish vicarage, who becomes entangled in a love triangle between two men of very different social standing. Stephen Smith, a self-made architect's assistant, wins her heart first, but her father disapproves of his humble origins. When the intellectual Henry Knight enters the picture, Elfride is drawn to his sophistication and authority. The rivalry between the two men, and Elfride's inability to be honest with either, sets the stage for a tragic conclusion that shocked Victorian readers.
- Thematic Analysis: Hardy uses the love triangle to explore the brutal mechanics of social class in Victorian England, where affection alone could never overcome the barriers of birth and status. The novel also examines the double standard applied to women's pasts, as Elfride's earlier romance becomes a source of shame that ultimately destroys her. Innocence, pride, and the impossibility of true honesty in a rigid society are woven throughout the story.
- Historical Context: Published in 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes was serialized in Tinsley's Magazine during a period when Hardy was still establishing himself as a novelist. The story draws directly from Hardy's courtship of Emma Gifford in Cornwall, making it one of his most personal works. It was also notably admired by Marcel Proust, who referenced it in In Search of Lost Time.