These illustrations have been reproduced by kind permission of the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester. Unauthorised duplication is a violation of European and international copyright laws. These illustrations, reduced in size, also appear in the Penguin Classics text (London: 1998), edited by Pamela Dalziel.
[Page numbers in brackets are from the Penguin edition.] Chapter numbers and instalment divisions have been excerpted from J. Don Vann's Victorian Novels in Serial, p. 82.
In the original serial version in Tinsley's Magazine (Sept. 1872--July 1873), each of the monthly instalments was accompanied by a full-page illustration by an obscure artist named J. A. Pasquier. Hardy himself had executed sketches for some of these [the first two], but they did not appear in the three-volume edition of the novel published in [May] 1873 [by Tinsley Brothers, London], and have not been revived since. (Page 455)
Page's remarks do not take into account Pamela Dalziel's 1998 Penguin edition, which reproduces the eleven illustrations in somewhat reduced form: in the magazine, each of the plates is 11.4 cm wide and approximately 17.6 cm high (with slight variations of a centimetre or two from one plate to another), whereas the 1998 edition has illustrations each 9.5 cm wide by 14.8 cm high. Since each new instalment of Hardy's novel led off each monthly number of Tinsley's Magazine, the first page of text which the plate faces (except for the February number, whose illustration does not face the opening page) is unnumbered. Page numbers in brackets refer to the Penguin edition.
First Instalment: September (Vol. XI, chapters I-V) [p. 43]: "A Perplexing Sight." September 1872, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. A single figure: Elfride Swancourt.
Second Instalment: Octomber (Vol. XI, chapters VI-VIII) [p. 60]: "On The Cliffs." October 1872, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Two figures: Elfride Swancourt and Stephen Smith.
Third Instalment: November (Vol. XI, chapters IX-XI) [p. 82]: "The Vicar is Indignant." November 1872, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Three figures: Elfride Swancourt, the Vicar (Mr. Swancourt), and Stephen Smith.
Fourth Instalment: December (Vol. XI, chapters XII-XIV) [p. 139]: "The Swancourts in The Drive." December 1872, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Five figures: Elfride Swancourt and her parents, coachmen.
Fifth Instalment: January (Vol. XI, chapters XV-XVIII) [p. 164]: "Elfride's Freak on Endelstow Tower." January 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Two figures: Elfride Swancourt and Knight.
Sixth Instalment: February (Vol. XI, chapters XIX-XXI) [p. 208]: "Elfride's Attempt to Help Knight." February 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Two figures: Elfride Swancourt and Knight.
Seventh Instalment: March (Vol. XII, chapters XXII-XXV) [p. 240]: "A Scene in The Belvedere." March 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Three figures: Elfride Swancourt, Stephen, and Knight.
Eighth Instalment: April (Vol. XII, chapters XXVI-XXVIII) [p. 272]: "Mrs. Jethway's Accusation." April 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Two figures: Elfride Swancourt and Mrs. Jethway.
Ninth Instalment: May (Vol. XII, chapters XXIX-XXXI) [p. 302]: "Elfride's Visit to the Widow's Cottage." May 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. One figure: Elfride Swancourt.
Tenth Instalment: June (Vol. XII, chapters XXXII-XXXVI) [p. 316]: "Knight Exacts Explanations." June 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Two figures: Elfride Swancourt and Knight.
Eleventh Instalment: July (Vol. XII, chapters XXXVII-XL) [p. 374]: "In the Smithy at Endelstow." July 1873, A Pair of Blue Eyes in Tinsley's Magazine. Four figures: This is the only plate not containing Elfride Swancourt; the characters depicted are the Undertaker's Man, Knight, Stephen, and the blacksmith.
Related Materials
References
Dalziel, Pamela, ed. Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, London: Penguin, 1998.
Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.
Page, Norman. "Thomas Hardy's Forgotten Illustrators." Bulletin the the New York Public Library 77: 4 (Summer 1974): 454-463).
Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985.
Last modified January 29 2010