One winter's day, Stephen Smith, a young assistant to a London architect, arrives in a remote coastal village to survey an old church. Staying with the vicar, he falls in love with his daughter, Elfride, a young woman with blue eyes. But Stephen is hiding a secret: his father is a mason in that very village.
Thomas Hardy tells of a love threatened by class differences. The novel contains a famous scene in which a man is left hanging from the edge of a cliff. It is said that this scene gave us the word “cliffhanger”.
A sensitive novel to discover in the language you are learning, with the translation always in view.
