In The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (1892) and The Well-Beloved (1897), Hardy, writes two different versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Por... » 

In The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (1892) and The Well-Beloved (1897), Hardy, writes two different versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Portland. The central figure is a man obsessed with the search for his ideal woman and sculpting the perfect figure of a naked Aphrodite. «