UNLIMITED Audiobooks and eBooks

Over 40,000 books & works on all major devices

Get ALL YOU CAN for FREE for 30 days!

Two on a Tower

Thomas Hardy

Book Overview: 

The plot concerns two – literally starcrossed – lovers: Swithin St. Cleeve, a very young amateur astronomer, and Viviette Constantine, an unhappily married and abandoned woman 8 or 9 years his senior. Each night Swithin climbs the old tower of the title, in the grounds of the Constantine estate. Lady Constantine, whose husband has been absent some years on an extended hunting and exploring journey to Africa, joins the young man in his stargazing, and supports his astronomical ambitions by buying him equipment, though his dreams of scientific renown are disappointed.Their relationship then deepens and takes several twists and turns.

How does All You Can Books work?

All You Can Books gives you UNLIMITED access to over 40,000 Audiobooks, eBooks, and Foreign Language courses. Download as many audiobooks, ebooks, language audio courses, and language e-workbooks as you want during the FREE trial and it's all yours to keep even if you cancel during the FREE trial. The service works on any major device including computers, smartphones, music players, e-readers, and tablets. You can try the service for FREE for 30 days then it's just $19.99 per month after that. So for the price everyone else charges for just 1 book, we offer you UNLIMITED audio books, e-books and language courses to download and enjoy as you please. No restrictions.

Book Excerpt: 
. . .I simply give permission, since you desire it.  The path that was to be made from the hill to the park is not to be thought of.  There is to be no communication between the house and the column.  The equatorial will arrive addressed to you, and its cost I will pay through you.  My name must not appear, and I vanish entirely from the undertaking. . . .  This blind is necessary,’ she added, sighing.  ‘Good-bye!’

‘But you do take as much interest as before, and it will be yours just the same?’ he said, walking after her.  He scarcely comprehended the subterfuge, and was absolutely blind as to its reason.

‘Can you doubt it?  But I dare not do it openly.’

With this she went away; and in due time there circulated through the parish an assertion that it was a mistake to suppose Lady Constantine had anything to do with Swithin St. Cleeve or his star-gazing schemes.  She . . . Read More

Community Reviews

Thomas Hardy said that he wrote this novel “to set the emotional history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous background of the stellar universe…” To begin the tale, a woman decides to investigate a tower and meets a young astronomer there who introduces her to the wonders of the night

Thomas Hardy este unul dintre cei mai mari romancieri englezi cu multe opere celebre precum "The Mayor of Casterbridge", "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", "Life's little ironies", "A pair of blue eyes" sau "The Well-Beloved". El a pornit in viata ca arhitect studiind arhitectura gotica si fiind premiat p

When you open my book there are what appears to be pencil sketches that if you touch them it would smear the art work.

When you read the book the first 70 pages or so are very slow and I liked the lesson at first. A glance into the life of Lady Constantine an upperclass social status and 8 years old

Cada vez tengo más claro que Hardy es y será uno de mis autores imprescindibles. Vamos a ver, el hombre tendía al drama. Pero al drama a ratitos gore, ese que dices "venga ya, es que no les puede ir peor". Supongo que por eso me ha chocado tanto encontrarme una historia de apariencia dulce. Ajá, ap

Any TH novel subtitled “a romance” will, inevitably, end in tears, in copious buckets of tears cried for years and years, the buckets turning into wells, and the wells turning into lagoons. This nonromcom concerns Viviette Constantine, a monied woman who takes a liking to Swithin St Cleeve, an unmon

My favourite Hardy's novel, hands down.
It wasn't as good as Tess of the d'Urbervilles nor Far From the Madding Crowd but this one talked to my soul and I will never ever forget it.

I did enjoy this, but it's not my favourite Hardy. It has some really interesting themes and quite an interesting central relationship, but I don't think the characters were as developed and the ending was quite odd. Hardy's writing is beautiful as always though.

Well, I am sad to say, but I am slowly winding up my summer of reading the literary works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. I recently finished Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower, one of his more obscure novels. Two on a Tower was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and then published in book-form i

View More Reviews