This remarkable novel was first serialised as "The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved" in 1892, between "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891) and "Jude the Obscure" (1895). It was thoroughly reworked several times before appearing as a book in 1897. The definitive version was published in 1912, by which time Hardy had ceased writing novels and turned his attention to poetry. These successive revisions over a period of twenty years are testament to both the author's literary perfectionism and the importance he ascribed to this particular novel. Jocelyn Pierston returns to his childhood Wessex as a young sculptor of twenty, in search of an ideal he describes his Well-Beloved; she takes form in successive women, who never manage to remain The Ideal for long. Pierston is astonished to discover the Well-Beloved in his childhood neighbour Avice, a beautiful, simple woman fashioned from local stock. He proposes: she accepts, but at the last minute slips away. Twenty years later, aged forty and still searching for the Well-Beloved, Pierston falls in love with Avice's daughter...and another twenty years later her granddaughter.The sculptor is bewildered by this never ending spiral; it seems that time has stopped, and history is doomed to repeat itself. Proust was fascinated by this tale - and the pursuit of Avice I, II and III foreshadows the link between Odette and Gilberte in "A la recherche du temps perdu", with the mother-daughter bond marking the passage of time in both works. Proust read Hardy's tale when "Recherche" was no more than a sketch, writing in a 1910 letter "such a beautiful work, which unfortunately resembles - yet a thousand times better - what I myself am doing". This is an exquisite short story exploring the theme of the well-beloved from the female point of view...

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) studied architecture before dedicating himself to writing. He published his first novel in 1871, and in 1872 invented the county of Wessex, setting for his subsequent novels and stories The Return of the Native, The Woodlanders, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, etc.