Drawn from Thomas Hardy's own years as an architect restoring West Country churches, A Pair of Blue Eyes sends a young designer to a remote Cornish parish to survey a crumbling tower — where he loses his heart to the rector's daughter, as, later, does the very London critic who reviews his work. Set on the cliffs Hardy knew intimately, it is also the novel that gave the word 'cliffhanger' its literal birth. This edition presents the complete and unabridged novel, newly typeset and illustrated with 50 full-page color plates, Millais and Courbet's coasts among them.