Hardy's two versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Portland. The central figure is a man obsessed both with the search for his ideal woman and with sculpting the perfect figure of Aphrodite.

Jocelyn Pierston, celebrated sculptor, tries to create an image of his ideal woman - his imaginary "Well-Beloved" - in stone, just as he tries to find her in the flesh.

A poignant story of a sculptor's all-time search for his ideal woman. To slake this desire he falls in love with three women in the same family, each of a different generation - grandmother, mother and daughter and also carves the figure of a naked Aphrodite. Hardy's splendid novel that merges tragedy and mockery is heartwarming due to its dominating themes of destiny and betrayal. Heart-rending!

PREFACE The peninsula carved by Time out of a single stone, whereon most of the following scenes are laid, has been for centuries immemorial the home of a curious and well-nigh distinct people, cherishing strange beliefs and singular customs, now for the most part obsolescent. Fancies, like certain soft-wooded plants which cannot bear the silent inland frosts, but thrive by the sea in the roughest of weather, seem to grow up naturally here, in particular amongst those natives who have no active concern in the labours of the 'Isle.' Hence it is a spot apt to generate a type of personage like the character imperfectly sketched in these pages—a native of natives—whom some may choose to call a fantast (if they honour him with their consideration so far), but whom others may see only as one that gave objective continuity and a name to a delicate dream which in a vaguer form is more or less common to all men, and is by no means new to Platonic philosophers. To those who know the rocky coign of England here depicted—overlooking the great Channel Highway with all its suggestiveness, and standing out so far into mid-sea that touches of the Gulf Stream soften the air till February—it is matter of surprise that the place has not been more frequently chosen as the retreat of artists and poets in search of inspiration—for at least a month or two in the year, the tempestuous rather than the fine seasons by preference. To be sure, one nook therein is the retreat, at their country's expense, of other geniuses from a distance; but their presence is hardly discoverable. Yet perhaps it is as well that the artistic visitors do not come, or no more would be heard of little freehold houses being bought and sold there for a couple of hundred pounds—built of solid stone, and dating from the sixteenth century and earlier, with mullions, copings, and corbels complete. These transactions, by the way, are carried out and covenanted, or were till lately, in the parish church, in the face of the congregation, such being the ancient custom of the Isle.