Desperate Remedies

Description

Hardy's first published novel, Desperate Remedies (1871), a piece of sensation fiction that encompasses illegitimacy, murder, blackmail, impersonation, and bigamy, was originally published anonymously. Written while, in Hardy's own words, he was 'feeling his way to a method', it nonetheless contains early examples of the kinds of extreme situations and emotions that continued to play a significant role in his later plots. As part of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy, this edition of the novel provides an authoritative text; full scholarly apparatus that allows the reader to trace Hardy's creative process; an introductory essay discussing the work's composition, publication, and critical reception; and comprehensive explanatory notes.

Richard Nemesvari is Professor of English and Dean of Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He edited Thomas Hardy's novel The Trumpet-Major and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. He has written extensively on Victorian fiction, and his monograph Thomas Hardy, Sensationalism, and the Melodramatic Mode was published in 2011. He is a Vice-President of the Thomas Hardy Association, a member of the Advisory Board for the Wilkie Collins Journal, and General Editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy.