A Purbeck Romance : Set in Thomas Hardy's Glorious Wessex

About Andrew from Poole and Rachel from Swanage, who meet, fall in love, and discover a mutual interest in Thomas Hardy (and especially the novel The Hand of Ethelberta, which he wrote mainly in Swanage).

The conversation now took a more serious tone. ‘Of all the characters in Hardy’s novels’, I said, ‘which is your favourite?’

‘Ethelberta, without a doubt’, Rachel replied.

‘From his eponymous novel, The Hand of Ethelberta?’

‘In fact, by coincidence’, she said, ‘that is the novel I am currently reading’.

‘It’s some time since I read it’, I said. ‘So please remind me of the story.’ In fact, this was the only one of Hardy’s novels that I did not possess a copy of.

‘Over there to our right. See the Old Harry Rocks, at the end of Handfast Point? Ethelberta rode her donkey from Swanage along the top of Ballard Down towards the Old Harry Rocks, and then doubled back towards Nine Barrow Down and Corfe Castle.’

‘Where she met Lord Mountclere’, I said. ‘Yes, it’s all coming back to me now.’

‘To me, one of joys of the novel is that it’s all set right here, in Purbeck’, Rachel continued. ‘In fact, Hardy came to Swanage in order to complete the work.’