Thomas Hardy

A Laodicean a Story of To-day Illustrated Thomas Hardy

Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who had purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. Having accepted the suit of Captain, Paula discovers that his illegitimate son has hatched a plot against Somerset, and so does not go through with the marriage. Instead she finally marries Somerset, but her castle home is burned to the ground, and she remains a Laodicean to the end. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. Somerset represents modernity in the novel. In the village there is an amateur photographer, William Dare, the illegitimate son of Captain De Stancy, an impoverished scion of that family. Captain De Stancy represents to Paula the notion of medieval nobility. She is attracted to each man for his respectively different virtues.