Two on a Tower

In a lonely tower rising above the Wessex fields, a young astronomer named Swithin St. Cleeve studies the stars, until Lady Constantine, an aristocrat trapped in an unhappy marriage and nearly a decade his senior, is drawn into both his work and his heart. Their secret love plays out against the immense, indifferent backdrop of the night sky, which Hardy uses to measure the smallness of human longing. Passion, social distance, and a husband long absent conspire to test them, and Hardy handles the class and age gap with unusual tenderness for his day. Slighter than his great tragedies but quietly moving, this is Hardy at his most cosmic. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.