Swithin St. Cleve: Variable Star Observer

Volume 15 number 2 (1986)

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Kenneth Weitzenhoffer

101 Clark Street, Brooklyn,

Abstract

Thomas Hardy's romance "Two on a Tower" is the first novel to use an astronomical background as its unifying theme and the first to cast an astronomer in the role of protagonist. One subplot of the novel concerns Swithin St. Cleeve's quest for fame through his observations of variable stars. Despite a number of observational and instrumental setbacks, he makes an amazing discovery about variable stars, one he is certain will excite the astronomical world. But before he can get the news into print, another astronomer announces that very discover and takes from St. Cleeve the fame he thought would be his.