Publisher's Synopsis
A Pair of Blue Eyes is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873, first serialised between September 1872 and July 1873. It was Hardy's third published novel, and the first not published anonymously upon its first publication.The book describes the love triangle of a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the respectable, established, older man who represents London society. Although the two are friends, Knight is not aware of Smith's previous liaison with Elfride.Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. The novel is the first to be set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England. It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the life and relationships of Bathsheba Everdene with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the thriftless soldier Sergeant TroyThe novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read in 2003. The book finished 10th on The Guardian's list of greatest love stories of all time in 2007. The novel has been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.About the Series: LOVE by Great Masters in LiteratureVOLUME 1. Symposium by Plato / The Loves (Amores) & The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) by Ovid (Illustrated by Jean De Bosschere)VOLUME 2. The Romance of Tristan & Iseult by Joseph Bédier / The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare (Illustrated by John Gilbert)VOLUME 3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Illustrated) / Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. (David Herbert) LawrenceVOLUME 4. Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (Illustrated by Frederick Henry Townsend & Annotated)) / Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.VOLUME 5. The Lily of the Valley (Le Lys dans la vallée) by Honoré de Balzac / The Charterhouse of Parma (La Chartreuse de Parme) by Stendhal / Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale, 1869) - Vol.1 & 2 - Illustrated. By Gustave Flaubert.VOLUME.6. A Pair of Blue Eyes (Illustrated by James Abbott Pasquier) & Far from the Madding Crowd (Illustrated by Helen Paterson Allingham) by Thomas Hardy.VOLUME 7. Aphrodite: Ancient Manners (Illustrated by Ed Zier) & The Songs of Bilitis (Illustrated by Willy Pogany) by Pierre LouÿsVOLUME 8. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (Illustrated).
