ABSTRACT
Two on a Tower is probably Hardy’s least known and least appreciated novel. Written in haste, the story first appeared in serial form before being published as a book in 1882 (Millgate 197). In September 1881, Hardy was recovering from what he believed had been a near-fatal illness and was anxious about the small size of the estate he would have left his wife had he died. Looking forward to the additional income, Hardy eagerly accepted the request from the editor of Atlantic Monthly for a serial to be published the following year and, in reply, quickly sent an outline for Two on a Tower. The serial ran in Atlantic Monthly from May to December 1882. The book was first published in three volumes in October 1882 and in one volume in December of the same year. It was not a critical success. The novel was chastised on moral grounds for certain elements of sexual innuendo and as an unfair satire on the Established Church of England. Saturday Review used the phrase “extremely repulsive” (Millgate 229) to describe the plot twist whereby Viviette, pregnant by Swithin who has left England for the Cape of Good Hope, accepts a marriage proposal from the Bishop of Melchester. The St. James Gazette (January 1883) emphasized how the incident “shocked” the reader and “insulted” the Church. Some reviewers admitted that they admired the “astronomical aspects” of the novel, although most thought that they were not “integrated sufficiently into the central story” (Millgate 229) and assessed the plot as improbably Gothic and overly melodramatic.1 Hardy expressed disappointment at the novel’s reception and stated in the preface to the second edition (1895) that he felt the greater purpose he had intended the story to fulfill had been overlooked. Namely, he had wished “to set the emotional history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous background of the stellar universe, and to impart to readers the sentiment that of the contrasting magnitudes the smaller might be the greater to them as men.”2
