"The Well-Beloved" complete the series of Hardy's great novels, repeating his favorite themes of man's eternal pursuit of excellence both in love and in art, and the ensuing suffering, Jocelyn Pearston, a famous sculptor, tries to create the image of his ideal woman - his imagined Beloved - in stone, just as he tries to find her in the flesh. Powerful symbolism marks this romantic fantasy, which Hardy firmly substantiated in reality with a characteristic authentic display of the location, the Slinger Islands or Portland.