A Pair of Blue Eyes

Elfride Swancourt, the daughter of a rector, is loved by Stephen Smith and starts to elope with him, but changes her mind and returns home. Later she falls in love with Henry Knight, but Mrs. Jethway, a spying neighbor, writes Knight of Elfride’s former experience … So begins a tragic series of events culminating in a heart-wrenching climax steeped in the devastating romantic irony typical of Hardy. Published in 1873 and first serialized between September 1872 and July 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes was Hardy's third novel, but the first to bear his name on publication.