Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy

Description

In 1871, when the sensation novel was the most ravenous appetite in English publishing, the young Thomas Hardy wrote one. His heroine Cytherea Graye, thrown onto the world by her father’s death, is drawn into the household of the imperious Miss Aldclyffe, where she meets the gentle architect Edward Springrove and the dangerous, handsome farmer Aeneas Manston. The triangle tightens into secret marriage, suspicion of murder, and a detective pursuit that strips away one mystery after another.

Hardy always kept his distance from the book, but readers have treasured it for exactly what he disowned: the first open declarations of his great themes. Fate is already a character here, class already a trap, and the country already Wessex. The melodrama is real; so is the genius learning its own strength.

Why readers still come back to it

• Hardy’s first novel — where all the later themes first show their faces.
• A full-blooded sensation plot with a genuinely original heroine.
• The pleasure of watching a major author discover his material in public.

About this DodaBooks edition

Set for sustained novel reading: clean professional type, a complete working table of contents, and steady chapter flow across every chapter of the book. The full text arrives the moment your payment completes, unexpurgated and entire.