Desperate Remedies

Desperate Remedies (1995) by Thomas Hardy (Penguin Classics), ISBN: 9780140435573 — Condition: Good — as sold by Crappy Old Books

Before Thomas Hardy started rearranging fates across the rolling fields of Wessex, he tried his hand at something deliciously sensational. Desperate Remedies (first published in 1871) is Hardy’s debut novel and it comes armed with the full Victorian toolkit: secret pasts, inconvenient wills, suspicious fires, mysterious letters, a staircase that seems to have opinions, and a villain whose name—Aeneas Manston—practically twirls its own moustache.

Our heroine Cytherea Graye (architect’s assistant, moral compass, lightning rod for trouble) takes a position in the household of the formidable Miss Aldclyffe and promptly finds herself boxed in by schemes, coincidences, and proposals with barbed hooks. Hovering nearby is a good man with terrible timing, a steward with plans, and a past that keeps refusing to stay politely in the past. If you like Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, welcome to Hardy’s sly, shadowy cousin: the sensation novel as engineered by an architect who will later build cathedrals of tragedy.

This Penguin Classics edition gives you the extra scaffolding—intro, notes, and textual niceties—so you can admire Hardy’s early craftsmanship while keeping track of who’s sneaking where with which letter at what hour. You’ll see the later Hardy taking shape: fate tightening its screws, class and gender boxing people in, and the landscape watching with an ancient, patient eye—even when the action sprints like a penny dreadful.

Condition-wise, it’s Good: a square, sturdy copy with a gentlemanly spine-crease, pages with that tasteful Penguin cream, and a cover that’s done some honest shelf-time without scandal. No singe marks from suspicious lanterns, no incriminating marginalia—just a ready-to-read classic.

Filed by Crappy Old Books, purveyors of paperbacks that know a plot twist when they see one. If you’ve met Hardy the tragedian and want Hardy the schemer, step inside—just mind the locked door at the end of the corridor.

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