Categories: Classic Books & Novels


A Pair of Blue Eyes - Oxford Worlds Classics
Thomas Hardy, Alan Manford

Reprint

Paperback (29 Jan 2009)


Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface.

Elfride is the daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a remote sea-swept parish in Cornwall based on St Juliot, where Hardy began the book during the first days of his courtship of his first wife Emma. Blue-eyed and high-spirited, Elfride has little experience of the world beyond, and becomes entangled with two men: the boyish architect, Stephen Smith, and the older literary man, Henry Knight. The former friends become rivals, and Elfride faces an agonizing choice.

Written at a crucial time in Hardys life, A Pair of Blue Eyes expresses more directly than any of his novels the events and social forces that made him the writer he was. Elfrides dilemma mirrors the difficult decision Hardy himself had to make with this novel: to pursue the profession of architecture, where he was established, or literature, where he had yet to make his name?


ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


Book information

ISBN: 9780199538492
Publisher: OUP OXFORD
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Pub date: 29 Jan 2009
Edition: Reprint
DEWEY: 823.8
DEWEY edition: 22
Language: English
Number of pages: 432
Weight: 296g
Height: 195mm
Width: 128mm
Spine width: 20mm