Reading Order
A Pair of Blue Eyes Reading Order
A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) by Thomas Hardy is the novel he called his most autobiographical — the story of Elfride Swancourt, a clergyman's daughter in the Cornish coastal parish of Endelstow, who is loved by three men in succession: Stephen Smith (a young architect's assistant who visits the parish, falls in love with Elfride, and elopes with her, only to abandon the elopement and return her home); Henry Knight (Stephen's older friend and literary mentor, a ruthless and precise critic who loves Elfride but cannot forgive her past when he discovers it); and Lord Luxellian (who marries Elfride after Knight rejects her). Hardy drew on his own first visit to Cornwall in 1870 — when he met his first wife Emma Gifford — for the setting and some of the circumstances; and the figure of Henry Knight (who holds Elfride to an impossible standard of purity) is widely understood as a self-critical portrait of Hardy's own tendency to idealize women. A Pair of Blue Eyes is darker and less formally perfect than Hardy's great Wessex novels, but it introduces many of his central themes and contains the extraordinary chapter 'A Pair of Blue Eyes' (chapter 22) in which Knight is left hanging from a Cornish cliff-face, looking at a trilobite in the rock, and contemplating geological time — one of the most striking passages in Hardy's work.
Where to start
A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) — Hardy's early Cornish novel. Best Hardy reading order: Far from the Madding Crowd → The Return of the Native → The Mayor of Casterbridge → Tess of the D'Urbervilles → Jude the Obscure. A Pair of Blue Eyes is a prequel in terms of Hardy's artistic development, best read as a companion.
Complete A Pair of Blue Eyes Book List
- 1Buy
A Pair of Blue Eyes
Thomas Hardy·1873·The complete novel — Elfride Swancourt, Stephen Smith, Henry Knight. Hardy's autobiographical early Cornish novel; a good modern edition is the Penguin Classics with Alan Manford's introduction - 2Buy
Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy·1874·The companion next novel — Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors. The companion as the fully realized version of the same investigation that A Pair of Blue Eyes attempts: where Elfride's story ends in tragedy and structural uncertainty, Bathsheba's story is organized with the full confidence of Hardy's mature technique - 3Buy
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy·1878·The companion — Eustacia Vye and Egdon Heath. The companion as the most classical statement of the same theme: the woman destroyed by the intersection of her passionate temperament and the social world's demand for an impossible purity is the same figure in both novels, but Eustacia Vye is far more fully realized than Elfride Swancourt - 4Buy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy·1891·The companion — Tess's tragedy. The companion as the fullest statement of the same theme that A Pair of Blue Eyes opens: the beautiful young woman destroyed by a man's demand for an impossible purity. Angel Clare's rejection of Tess is Henry Knight's rejection of Elfride raised to its most devastating power - 5Buy
Under the Greenwood Tree
Thomas Hardy·1872·The companion predecessor — Dick Dewy and Fancy Day in the Dorset village. The companion as the lighter, more comic version of the same investigation: Under the Greenwood Tree (Hardy's second novel) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (his third) are companion investigations of the same pastoral-romantic world - 6Buy
The Woodlanders
Thomas Hardy·1887·Hardy's companion — Giles Winterborne and Grace Melbury. The companion as the quiet and melancholy investigation of the same theme: the woman who is held to an impossible standard by the man who loves her, and the consequences of that standard for both of them - 7Buy
Desperate Remedies
Thomas Hardy·1871·Hardy's companion first novel — a sensation novel of crime and identity. The companion as the predecessor: Hardy's very first novel (rejected by the publisher in its original form) and the investigation of the same Cornish-Devon world that A Pair of Blue Eyes inhabits, but in the sensationalist mode rather than the pastoral romantic mode - 8Buy
Daniel Deronda
George Eliot·1876·Eliot's companion — Gwendolen Harleth and Grandcourt. The companion as the most complex Victorian investigation of the same theme: the woman who is destroyed by a man's demand for an impossible perfection is the same figure in both novels, but Eliot's investigation is organized around a much more complex psychological portrait of both parties
A Pair of Blue Eyes — Frequently Asked Questions
What is A Pair of Blue Eyes about?
A Pair of Blue Eyes is about Elfride Swancourt, a clergyman's daughter in a remote Cornish coastal parish, who is loved in succession by three men. First is Stephen Smith, a young architect's assistant who visits to restore the church, falls deeply in love with Elfride, and attempts an elopement that Elfride herself abandons at the last moment. Second is Henry Knight, Stephen's literary mentor and older friend — a precise, exacting critic who falls in love with Elfride but cannot forgive her past (her earlier relationship with Stephen, and her even earlier engagement to a local man) when he discovers it. Third is Lord Luxellian, who marries Elfride after Knight rejects her. The novel is most famous for Chapter 22, in which Knight is left hanging from a cliff-face, staring at a trilobite in the Silurian rock, while Elfride goes for help — a meditation on geological time and human insignificance that is one of the most striking passages in Hardy's work.
Is A Pair of Blue Eyes autobiographical?
A Pair of Blue Eyes is Hardy's most autobiographical novel. He began it in 1872, immediately after his first visit to St. Juliot in Cornwall in March 1870, where he had gone to supervise the restoration of the church and had met his future first wife Emma Lavinia Gifford — the daughter of the resident clergyman. Emma was lively, spirited, and unconventional; the Cornish setting is drawn directly from what Hardy saw on that visit (the cliffs, the church, the sea); and the situation of the architect's assistant who falls in love with the clergyman's daughter is Hardy's own situation. The figure of Henry Knight, however, is more complex: Hardy uses Knight partly as a self-critical portrait of the tendency (which he recognized in himself) to demand an impossible perfection of women, and of the catastrophic consequences when a real woman fails to meet an idealized standard.
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