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Desperate Remedies was Hardy's first published work, and combines murder mystery with a powerful love story.

Hardy described Desperate Remedies as a tale of 'mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity'.

Cytherea has taken a position as lady's maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves, Edward Springrove, is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward Manston.

Blackmail, murder and romance are among the ingredients of Hardy's first published novel, and in it he draws blithely on the 'sensation novel' perfected by Wilkie Collins. Several perceptive critics praised the author as a novelist with a future when Desperate Remedies appeared anonymously in 1871. In its depiction of country life and insight into psychology and sexuality it already bears the unmistakable imprint of Hardy's genius.

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Imprint:   Penguin
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 26mm
Weight:   320g
ISBN:   9780140435238
ISBN 10:   0140435239
Pages:   512
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928) was recognized, and even revered, as the major literary figure of his time by his contemporaries. Most of his major novels are available in Penguin Classics. MARY RIMMER is Associate Professor of English at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. She has written extensively on Hardy, and is currently writing a book on narrative voice in Hardy.

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