The Transit of Venus is a 1980 novel written by Australian author Shirley Hazzard.

[1] Two orphaned Australian sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, emigrate to England in the 1950s.

A young astronomer, Ted Tice, falls in love with Caroline, and the next thirty years of his life are dedicated to his pursuit of her; however, Caroline prefers the unscrupulous Paul Ivory, a playwright.

Ted Tice rejects the accidental (and thus cheap, illusory and illegitimate) power offered by merely perceiving another’s weakness and exploiting it.

The novel is a call to resist vulgar power, the type gained through reduction, through first impressions, through stereotype or quick certainty.