Writing 'A Pair of Blue Eyes'

The cover to a recent mass-market edition
of Thomas Hardy's third novel
A Pair of Blue Eyes.

A Pair of Blue Eyes was Thomas Hardy's third novel. It is an interesting transitional book in that contains, like the two prior to it, conceptual threads of his never-published first effort The Poor Man and the Lady. Unlike those books, it was written entirely after his introduction to his future wife, Emma Gifford, and it was published under his own name. Before digging into the substance of the novel itself, it may prove valuable to examine the circumstances under which it was produced.

Hardy had completed Under the Greenwood Tree in what one might characterize as a weakened position in terms of his ability to bargain. His first novel, Desperate Remedies had ended up costing him money and had slipped into the remainder bin prior to the release of his follow-up. After fumbling for some time to find a publisher for his finished manuscript for Greenwood, he finally settled it with the same publisher, Tinsley, but only by selling the copyright for a mere £30, a pittance more than the sum he'd lost on his first book.

It was a dynamic time in Hardy's life. He was living between four places: his family home near Dorchester; Weymouth, where he pursued architectural work; London, where he mixed architecture and publishing business; and St. Juliot, where he was pursuing a future with someone who seems to have loved him as unequivocally as he loved her. It was a romance conducted largely by correspondence, punctuated by intense periods of dreaming together about the possibilities of the future. Emma became his sounding board and his copyist and, depending on how seriously you decide to take her later claims, his collaborator.

Reviews and sales on his second book had been stronger than his first and it was Tinsley this time who came to Hardy, in late June of 1872, interested in tying up his next effort for serialization and eventual publication. Hardy had already told him of a new story he was working on, drawn, at least in part, from his recent excursions to Cornwall. Tinsley offered him 200£ for the serialization and rights of a novel called A Pair of Blue Eyes to publish the novel but the first installment had to be published in September.

It was real money but it came with real demands from him as a writer. Some sources suggest Hardy had as many as five chapters written before he made the agreement with Tinsley. Taking that at face value, it represents about 10% of the book that was to be serialized monthly until its end in April of the following year. He completed the first installment by the first of August 1872 and then embarked for a visit, his first, with Emma's parents to discuss the prospect of her hand in marriage.

That visit is one of the black holes that Hardy installed in his own biography by destroying all references to it and speaking of it only in the vaguest terms. Emma's father, impoverished but apparently still possessing all the class prejudice of his upbringing, rejected Hardy outright and the grudge-bearing author never saw either of Emma's parents again. As A Pair of Blue Eyes has a ill-fated love between a low-born but ambitious man and a liberal-minded but tradition-bound heroine sitting at its core, it's a challenge not to project that narrative on to the void Hardy constructed around this devastating moment in his life.

Emma's parents may have rejected Hardy but Emma did not. It was their foolhardy attitudes about class and money that had abandoned her to become a maid-servant to her sister, who had married a septuagenarian clergyman under the duress of a similar paucity of options. Hardy loved her. He had ambition. He had talent. It was a gamble but, given her precarious position, it was, perhaps, the wisest bet available to her.

Unfortunately, Emma's parents were not the only parties opposed to the union. Hardy's mother, Jemima, was opposed to any of her children marrying and there was nothing about Emma that appeared to inspire feelings to the contrary. She seemed to resent the implication that her Thomas wasn't good enough for someone else's family and rejected Emma on similar grounds. The pair of lovers were faced with a future unendorsed by either of their respective families.

It was in this highly-uncertain but, doubtless, highly-emotionally charged period that Hardy completed his obligations (by March of 1873) to Tinsley LIKE A BOSS. A Pair of Blue Eyes was Hardy's first novel to be published under his own name and, by my reckoning, also the first that has moments (long stretches, even) where we encounter the full power of Thomas Hardy, the novelist. It sold well, was reviewed well and led immediately to the development and creation of Hardy's first great novel, Far from the Madding Crowd.

Emma and Tom

Emma Gifford Hardy

Given Thomas Hardy's propensity for modeling his fictional characters and circumstances on people and events in his own life, positing that his first wife Emma casts an oversized shadow on his work borders on hyperbole. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the influence she exerts from within his work is unlike any other person in his life. She served as the direct model for his fictional heroines far fewer times than one might suspect and, no doubt, than she might have preferred. Hardy invoked her most often in his poems after her death. Her greatest presence in his fiction appears obliquely in his relentless exploration of marriage as a manifold burden on the human animal.

The Hardy's marriage was not a happy one for either of them but most of that unpleasantness lies just beyond the scope of this post. I want to explore who Emma Gifford was and how she and Tom became a couple because, as usual, elements of that reappear in ways minor and major in his fiction and poetry.

They met at St. Juliot, home to a church in Cornwall nearly 150 miles to the south and west of Dorset, that Hardy had been sent to restore (ie mostly demolish and build again). Emma's sister was married to the reverend attached to the church and Emma lived with them as a general helper. This may have been more a title of convenience as both sisters had been forced to rely upon one another for support (financial, emotional etc) after a downturn in their family's fortunes.

Emma's father was a solicitor (like a barrister but of a slightly lower social status as they could not argue cases in court) but retired early in his career to live off of his mother's holdings. When she died, the family moved into more meagre dwellings and sent Emma and Helen out into the world to secure some kind of gainful employment and, we must assume, husbands. While Hardy's fascination with his possible lineal ties to better positioned 'Hardye's of generations past may have ignited his penchant for stories that hinged on the idea of "fallen blood," Emma's own family had taken this tumble within her lifetime and Hardy would have been well-positioned to see how their social demeanor was totally at odds with their contemporary accommodations because of it.

When Hardy arrived in St. Juliot, he had completed the manuscript for his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady (which was never published) and, having finally given up on finding a suitable publishing home for it, had followed up with Desperate Remedies. He was having success taking architecture jobs on his own terms even while nursing the wounds of his realization that he was now too old and too educationally disadvantaged to ever reach his goal of attending university in order to join the clergy. He was also coming off the definitive end to an ambiguous "agreement" (like a precursor to an actual engagement) with a young lady named Eliza Nicholls that had gone on for several years.

I offer this as evidence that Thomas, three months before his 30th birthday, was primed for a romantic adventure away from home and that's just what he found. They pair appears to have kissed for the first time at the end of his week-long visit to make sketches and then engaged in a romance, sometimes in person, sometimes by correspondence over the next four years. Emma took an active role in Hardy's emerging career as a writer by copying his manuscripts for final submission to publishers. He write Under the Greenwood Tree, A Pair of Blue Eyes and Far from the Madding Crowd before they finally married in 1874.

We'll close out our look with an acknowledgment that the Hardys' marriage was frowned upon by both of their families. Emma's father seems to have rejected Hardy as a possible partner to his daughter because of his relative lower social position. The Hardys seem to have rejected her because she was an outsider and an open threat to Jemima's plans to have the children remain unmarried. The Hardys, as I've mentioned before, did not attend the ceremony.

There's considerable biographical and textual evidence that the engagement and reservations on both sides of the family were overcome by a pregnancy scare and that it may have been a deliberate deception in which Thomas was not an inside player. This incident and the lack of children to emerge from their union cast its own pall upon their relationship and seems to mark a definite line in time between their courtship, a source of great inspiration to Hardy's work, and their marriage, a source of great turmoil to both participants.