Product Description
Under the influence of rum, Michael Henchard, a hay trusser, sells his wife Susan and their daughter for five guineas. Years later she returns to Casterbridge to find her husband is now the Mayor. They remarry, but his past refuses to be buried. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

tragic but enjoyable
The story of a man who ruins his life by doing the right thing at the wrong time, both in business and in his relationships with his wife, a potential wife, and his stepdaughter.In business, he buys at the wrong time and sells at the wrong time.In relationships, he is cold when his nearest and dearest wish to be close to him, and then seeks them out after it is too late.

human character in constant conflict between strong forces
Good literature provides keen observations in behaviors and psychology of human beings when faced with moral choices and consequences, and this book definitely is filled with good stuff.The main character, Mr. Henchard, is severely flawed and his iniquities are multiple, and yet, he also is so human and really hard not to have sympathetic feelings toward him in the end.The writing is wonderfully philosophical and dramatic, especially the last paragraph of Elizabeth-Jane's reflection on life is movingly insightful.

Greek tragedy...
...but without the histrionics.

One of the greatest novels ever written.Also one of the most suspenseful and (for those whose palates have not been ruined by trash) one of the most enjoyable.

Thomas Hardy continues to spread depression
Thomas Hardy, while certainly an extremely talented author, seemingly had the knack of producing Victorian-era soap operas which never fails to depress even the most cheerful soul.Sometimes his depressing stories has a message that produces a somewhat cathartic reading experience (as with Tess of the D'Urbervilles), but with The Mayor of Casterbridge all we get is utter negativity.This mayor is one twisted, selfish and self-loathing individual.He seems to live with a rain cloud over his head, and doesn't quite understand how it is to be loved.Fun guy?Nope.And there isn't even a happy ending.


Bottom line: nice characterizations and fine prose amount to lipstick on a sow.Not recommended.

favorite Hardy book
Reread this one recently - what a great book. This is my favorite of all Hardy's books. The fascinating part of this novel is the protagonist, because he is such a mix of good and bad. He has good and even heroic impulses and acts, and bad and even evil impulses and acts. The way he manages to sabotage the good things he could get reminds me of Lily in the House of Mirth, although Henchard's sabotage is due to through bad temper and anger and insecurity, while Lily's are due to ambivalence. But the trip downward is quite similar. Basically it ends up being the story of a man's self-destruction. What a crime that Hardy's novels were unpopular when he first wrote them, and the bad reviews discouraged him from writing more! I have them all but wish there were more. ... Read more

Product Description
"See if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever done housework, or are milker's hands like mine."\n\nSo Rhoda Brook, the abandoned mistress of Farmer Lodge, is jealous to discover details of his new bride in 'The Withered Arm', the title story in this selection of Hardy's finest short stories. Hardy's first story, 'Destiny and a Blue Cloak' was written fresh from the success of Far From the Madding Crowd. Beautiful in their own right, these stories are also testing-grounds for the novels in their controversial sexual politics, their refusal of romance structures, and their elegiac pursuit of past, lost loves. \nSeveral of the stories in The Withered Arm were collected to form the famous volume, Wessex Tales (1888), the first time Hardy denoted 'Wessex' to describe his fictional world. The Withered Arm is the first of a new two-volume selection of Hardy's short stories, edited with an introduction and notes by Kristin Brady. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Collection
Thomas Hardy is best known for novels and poems but was also one of England's best short story writers. Besides mastering the form itself, Hardy used short stories as a training ground for themes and plot devices that often ended up in the novels, making them all the more interesting for fans and scholars. This has nine stories spread over about 350 pages - about a sixth of his total -, including some of his best and best-known. The selection is strong and representative, proceeding chronologically from Hardy's first published story until 1888's Wessex Tales, his first collection. Fans of the novels will certainly want these, but whether they will want this collection is an open question, as most of the stories are widely available. One plus is that it has two - "Destiny and a Blue Cloak" and "The Thieves Who Couldn't Help Sneezing" that are hard to find. They are very early and minor, but fans will certainly appreciate them. Perhaps more importantly, there is a wealth of bonus material:a general introduction stating the purpose of this Penguin Hardy series; a Hardy chronology; a map of Hardy's fictional Wessex; a scholarly introduction with substantial background on the stories and some critical analysis; suggestions for further reading; a history of the texts; detailed endnotes; a history of Hardy short stories; the original illustrations; and a glossary illuminating the heavy use of dialect and other unusual words. Those wanting more stories must of course look elsewhere, but one would have to search very hard for one of comparable length with as much bonus material. One oddity is that, in contrast to nearly all editions, the texts are from first volume publication rather than final edits. This may deter some, but hard-cores and scholars will probably welcome the distinction, and the notes in any event detail changes.

The stories vary in quality and significance. "Destiny" is Hardy's first real published story and is in many ways the blueprint for not only later short stories but much of his other work. Like more famous work, it has a female protagonist and focuses on forbidden love, but it is truly remarkable how many themes and philosophical concerns later fleshed out are already here. Hardy's interest in fate, chance, irony, and the universe's profound indifference toward humanity are on clear display. Much of the characterization and strong sense of place he became known for are also present. So is Hardy's penchant for complex plots; it is near-astonishing how much he could pack into a short work. This is also a good example of how he used shorts to test elements for novels, as he reused the major plot twist in his novel The Hand of Ethelberta. "Destiny" may lack the grand, tragic sweep of Hardy's best work but certainly has it in embryo; this would be one of most writers' best pieces.

A children's story with an obvious moral and some humor, "The Thieves" is probably the most light-hearted work from a writer synonymous with dark ones. It has little in common with his other fiction and is almost certainly his least significant, but fans will still enjoy it, and those who do not normally like Hardy may well appreciate the interesting variation on a standard template.

"The Distracted Preacher" is one of Hardy's best shorts. The profound sense of place so prevalent in the novels is here in strong force, as he makes the rural coastal setting seem to truly come alive. The plot is also one of his most conventionally exciting, full of mystery and suspense involving the smuggling trade he had heard much about from relatives. The story explores several characteristic major themes; for example, it has perhaps Hardy's subtlest and most ambiguous depiction of rural poverty's consequences and variously examines his lifelong interest in religion and preachers. Many of his views were far ahead of his time, as this dramatization clearly shows. The preacher's conventional morality is contrasted with bold practicality, implicitly questioning much that Victorians took for granted. The ending made it seem palatable but now comes off as distinctly pat, especially to those aware of Hardy's true sympathies. He later admitted that he felt pressured to make it conventional in order to be published and described his far more appropriate chosen ending, thankfully given in the notes.

"Fellow-Townsmen" is probably Hardy's short masterpiece, great enough to justify purchasing the book for it alone. Though only fifty pages, it has the characterization, plot complexity, and thematic depth of most novels and reads much like one. Fans will indeed see several similarities to various Hardy novels, as this vein is so rich he drew on it more than once. Remarkably for such a short work, the story has some of his most memorable characters and scenes. There is a tone of intense drama throughout, and this is one of Hardy's most emotional works - which truly says much. More importantly and notably, Hardy's concern with fate and coincidence so melodramatically ironic that it seems malevolent is at full strength. The story abounds with missed opportunities and regrets, showing the dark sides of love and the human condition. The grand, sweeping feel of immense tragedy that pervades his greatest novels is here, and the town's vivid portrayal is on par with better-known settings. Simply put, the work's greatness is such that Hardy would have to be called a great writer of short stories even if this were his only one.

"The Three Strangers" is likely Hardy's most famous short story, so popular that he turned it into a one-act play decades later. However, I do not think it is one of his best and regret that it overshadows greater work. It is enjoyable to be sure - deftly plotted and superbly executed - but lacks the vibrant dramatization of weighty themes that characterizes his best work, relying primarily on a clever plot twist. Still, the opening has some of Hardy's most unforgettable prose, the suspense is unusually high, and the plot can perhaps be seen as a more conventionally exciting depiction of his central concerns. This is another that those who do not usually like Hardy may especially enjoy.

"The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid" is of novella length, another great work and one that probably influenced the novels more than any other short story. It is in many ways a prototype for Tess of the D'Urbervilles and the contemporaneous short stories in A Group of Noble Dames, not least in its female protagonist. Hardy portrays farm labor's harsh reality with stunning realism, and the contrast with rich society life is movingly striking. However, the story also has obvious fairy tale elements; this combination and the intermediate length make it unique. It is on one level among Hardy's most affecting and thought-provoking rural poverty depictions, but there are many other dark elements. Its portrayal of love as an essentially self-destructive force leading to hopeless obsession anticipates his late novelistic masterpieces, and the ambiguous Baron is one of Hardy's most fascinating characters. He is in one sense a hedonistic creature of almost pure, even archetypal, evil like Desperate Remedies' Aeneas Manston or Tess' Alec D'Urberville, yet deep melancholy and a tragic nature make him sympathetic. The plot is deliberately one of Hardy's least realistic, but the symbolism - not least in regard to class issues - inherent in his encounters with the milkmaid is patent, and the tackling of higher themes is well-executed. Like Paula Power in A Laodicean, the Baron's nature is essentially ambivalent, and so is the story's conclusion. Hardy later significantly revised it, but this tantalizing yet undeniably appealing quality remained. This is in many ways one of his most subtly complex works and also one of his most overlooked.

"Interlopers at the Knap" is a minor story covering very familiar Hardy territory, but an exquisitely drawn setting and fine characterization make it very readable. We get yet another sympathetic heroine, and the story makes a push for female independence in an area where they had little. Regret and missed opportunities are again ubiquitous, though the plot and conclusion are less dark than many other works', and the strong protagonist's ironclad will recalls more famous Hardy female leads. In contrast to prior works like Far from the Madding Crowd, though, the ending does not bow to convention, making this a near-inversion of typical Victorian courtship stories and thus more interesting and complex than it may first seem.

"The Waiting Supper" is far more substantial - indeed, a near-masterpiece. Many elements again recall other works, but this wayward love is so movingly and believably depicted that the story is one of Hardy's most pathos-drenched. Place and characterization are superb as always, and the plot is one of the most adventurous and suspenseful among Hardy shorts. The story is another ambiguity exercise, particularly the ending, and the depiction of happy marriage as near-unattainable is characteristic of later Hardy fiction. This is a work that first seems conceived only to bring tears - which it likely will -, but the ambivalent conclusion is quite thought-provoking. "The Waiting" again essentially inverts the Victorian love template, but Hardy lets us decide if the ambivalent outcome is the best possibility.

"The Withered Arm" rivals "Fellow-Townsmen" as Hardy's best short work; though lacking the latter's novelistic sweep, it is more tightly written and thus a better success in pure short story terms. This may even be Hardy's most superbly plotted and masterfully executed tale of all; the mysterious and foreboding threads coalesce in a dark, seemingly inevitable ending exemplifying Hardy's cruel fate twists. It does not take on grand concerns to the extent most of his best work does but is in many ways one of his bleakest stories; its vision of humanity headed toward a tragic end with little or no control over events is unforgettable. Hardy's best novels are replete with such drama, but no prior short story conveyed it so fully or well. "The Withered" is also an appropriate close for the book, being in many ways the culmination of Hardy's fiction to that point. It is one of his few works to have central scenes in both Casterbridge - the largest town in Wessex - and the surrounding countryside, while the cast of milkmaids, hanging judges, wronged women, and nervous new wives seems to have stepped out of a myriad Hardy stories. Not least interestingly, though much of Hardy's work is steeped in rural Southwest England folklore, this is virtually his only fiction with a strong supernatural element. His editor and friend Leslie Stephen criticized the element's ambiguity, saying he was unsure whether to believe or not, but this was surely Hardy's point; he again lets us judge. Far more important in any case are the dark forces at the story's heart - forces that soon dominated the little fiction he had left to write.

This brings up one of the book's most important virtues - it leads to other Hardy fiction, particularly his overlooked short works. Readers must choose how they want to read the stories, but they should certainly be read. Though less important and acclaimed than his novels, they are an essential part of his genius and will delight fans of the longer works.

"Exercising misery to its fullest extent."
In this first of a two-volume collection of Thomas Hardy's (1840-1928) short stories, Editor Kristin Brady (THE FIDDLER OF THE REELS AND OTHER STORIES 1888-1900) has drawn nine short stories from 1874 to 1888, the year Hardy published his first collection of short fiction, WESSEX TALES. During this period, Hardy also published FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1874), THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE (1878), THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE(1886) and THE WOODLANDERS (1887). With all the pathos of and these Victorian classics, his short stories deliver ideas and themes that receive greater development in Hardy's novels. This book, which includes an excellent history together with appendices of the texts, may be read as a collection of Thomas Hardy's measures of human misery. In "Destiny and a Blue Coat," "The Thieves Who Couldn't Help Sneezing," "The Distracted Preacher," "Fellow-Townsmen," "The Three Strangers," "The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid," "Interlopers at the Knap," "The Waiting Supper," and "The Withered Arm," his characters reveal their "rich capacity for misery . . . exercised to its fullest extent" (p. 126). For Hardy, life and love were synonymous with human suffering. Okay, so even if Hardy composes his fiction using only the black notes on the keyboard, his stories are certain to satisy readers (like me), who love reading Victorian literature.

G. Merritt ... Read more

Product Description
When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Clasically Happy
Classics are forever new. I first read it as a teenager and loved the romantic side and now as a senior citizen I see the social side of the relationships.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
This was a Christmas gift for my oldest granddaughter. I was very pleased with the item and the shipping. She was delighted to receive the book. I will shop for Christmas and other occasions from Amazon.

Penguin clothbound classics
The Penguin clothbound classics are beautiful. They make beautiful gifts and look great on the bookshelf. I looked everywhere and the price I paid on Amazon ($13.60) is by far the cheapest. They're a bargain at that price.

Classic-looking Classics
What a gorgeous package for classic titles. These books deserve to be feted on design blogs because they are works of art. I can't wait to have more on my shelf.

Book
Beautiful book. I love the fabric cover. There is also a ribbon book marker in each of these books in a coordinating color! ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Psychological; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Technology ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

A Near-Masterpiece
The Woodlanders is not Thomas Hardy's most famous or acclaimed work but was his own favorite among his novels, and many - perhaps most - fans put it in his top tier. This diehard Hardy reader puts it just below that, which is to say it is truly great. Neophytes should read better-known works first, but everyone should stop here quite soon.

Perhaps the most immediately attractive aspect is its vibrant setting. Hardy seems to truly bring The Woodlands to life, describing with a vivid precision that will make it linger in the mind long after reading. It is my favorite Hardy setting other than The Return of the Native's Egdon Heath and many fans' favorite. Most Hardy novels and much of his poetry is set in what he called Wessex - a part-real, part-dream area, based on his native Southwest England, that he made world famous. Perhaps no one equals his profound sense of place; he describes scenes so believably and importantly that they become integral to the story. This is a preeminent example. All the Wessex novels are valuable for showing how a long-vanished world looked and how its people thought, spoke, and lived but none perhaps more so than this. The Woodlands are probably the most rural part of Wessex, which truly says much - a handful of cottages scattered among a thick forest. The real places on which Hardy based the area were almost gone by the time of the book (1887) - had indeed started going even before his 1840 birth - and are certainly gone now, as is nearly every remotely similar place in the Western world. Hardy's descriptive power thus does us a great service by making such a long-lost place seem so real that we not only seem to see it but feel and smell it also. As in The Return, the setting is so important that it is practically a character - arguably even the most important. The woods are described somewhat anthropomorphically and are essential to the plot in many ways. Anyone who thinks such things can never be truly important to a story should read this; literature has few better examples.

Characterization is also strong. This was always a Hardy high point, and The Woodlanders has some truly memorable personages:the intelligent and well-educated Grace, who has in many ways overcome her upbringing's conventional shortcomings but is also a true Woodlands native; Giles, who has genuinely noble feelings and sentiments but is held back in the world's eyes by lack of education and a life tied to the Woodlands; Fitzpiers, who is well-educated, intelligent, and capable but selfish, hedonistic, and in other ways loathsome; Melbury, who truly loves and wants the best for his daughter Grace and has other admirable qualities but whose lack of insight sometimes leads to rash decisions and unfortunate consequences; Marty, a slight, lonely figure who is hard-working and capable of great love but virtually unnoticed by all; the beautiful and lofty but eccentric and essentially selfish Mrs. Charmond; and more. Also, as often with Hardy, there is a band of colorful rustics serving as a sort of chorus. They add considerably to the local depiction, give some much-needed comic relief, and are important in discussing some of the major themes in less overt ways, making them more conventionally palatable and driving them home in a sense very different from the narration's high seriousness but at least as effective. This last is particularly important just before the end, as they get the last word on marriage, the main theme, subtly zeroing in on Hardy's point.

The most interesting character now - as probably then - is Grace. Hardy is well-known for his heroines, and though not his most famous or fascinating, she is very intriguing in her own right. Like many Hardy heroines, she is educated well above most women of her era, which her class and location make all the more notable. Hardy again shows how unfairly such women were treated in an unapologetically sexist society; even with her many acquired and natural charms, Grace is unprepared for many of life's most important challenges because women were simply not given an opportunity. Even those in her position had few options other than marriage, and it is quickly apparent how naïve and ignorant even she is in this all-important area because of the relatively sheltered lives virtually all Victorian women lived.

Marriage and human love relationships generally are the book's main concern; they are variously dramatized and reflected on in a larger sense. This had much contemporary relevance, but what might be called Hardy's philosophical approach also makes it of great universal important. Love is after all probably the most ubiquitous human feeling, and Hardy dealt with it often, frequently focusing on marriage's monolithic regulatory role. He once wrote in his journal that love thrives on propinquity but dies on contact - a claim he often fictionalized but perhaps never as clearly or fully as here. The Woodlanders is a savage yet subtle critique of the marriage institution in which Hardy's own troubled marriage and advanced views led him to lose faith. He later criticized it more overtly in The Well-Beloved and Jude the Obscure, but this condemnation is at least as strong for those willing to read between proverbial lines. More generally, the book paints a very bleak picture of human interaction itself; characters without fail attach themselves to the wrong person, love never being requited. Hardy thought the chances of mutual love reaching full fruition were near nil, and this is perhaps his most startling example. It may be a bit bleak for some, but his point is well made.

Another major theme is class. Hardy had advanced views here also, which showed up again and again in his work, not least in this novel. Grace and her father are rare examples of nineteenth-century British upward mobility; there is much to admire in her concerted education and his hard work, but the book shows just how hard it was to overcome an unfair system that brands one from birth. Moving up increases their money and knowledge but makes human interaction very difficult; they are still looked down on by upper classes, but an understandable pride makes them hesitate about mixing with their own, most of whom are newly intimidated in any case. All this keeps Grace from marrying Giles, her true love, in favor of the aristocrat Fitzpiers, with dire consequences. Giles himself is now nervous about making his love known yet also incapable of returning Marty's more accessible affection. Fitzpiers is immediately struck by Grace but distraught when he realizes her class; unable to overcome desire, he succumbs but finds it impossible to mix with lower classes, much to the detriment of both. Hardy's sympathy clearly lies with the lower classes, and people like Henry James unsurprisingly attacked the book for vilifying the upper classes, who are portrayed as selfish, snobbish, pleasure-seeking, and despicable with few or no redeeming qualities. The conversation between Giles and Fitzpiers when the latter first sees Grace drives in this nail most forcefully - indeed unforgettably; it is one of Hardy's most powerful and thought-provoking scenes -, but it is present throughout in varying guises.

As all this suggests, there is a strong fatalistic streak. Characters seem unable to overcome facts of birth and upbringing and are frequently victims of what might be called bad luck or cruel fate; chance and coincidence rarely turn out well. This is true for much of Hardy's work, and his later epic poem The Dynasts detailed what he called the Imminent Will, a blind force controlling human affairs, which had been implied here and elsewhere. Hardy was profoundly aware of humanity's less than microscopic cosmic significance and had long ceased to believe that life is overseen by any force that is benevolent or sympathetic to people. This can all be gleaned in The Woodlanders. It is not truly tragic like many of his novels, and the ending in particular at least has a sort of equilibrium - especially in contrast to the catastrophic ones he often favored -, though he elsewhere made clear that Fitzpiers will roam again. However, the book has many dark spots, and its thinly veiled social, philosophical, and theological views are bleak indeed.

If all this sounds rather grim or dry, worry not; Hardy knew how to tell a story. Unlike many writers dealing with heavy themes, he always took care to have them arise naturally from a story rather than overwhelming it. He is virtually without the heavy-handedness and didacticism nearly always fatal in such works. His characters are a big part of this; plausible and sympathetic, we recognize our humanity in them, truly feeling with and for them. The plot is also so tight and superbly executed that, looking back, it seems to unfold near-inevitably, though anyone who guessed how specific events turned out would have surely been wrong. This of course plays right into Hardy's fatalism, but it is clear from reading the book just how much later writes owe him. Unlike most Victorian authors handling serious themes, he was supremely entertaining; his stories were not only engrossing but truly exciting, bursting with the kind of twists and suspense then so rare. Even pulp fans could hardly ask for more. The Woodlanders is a case in point. The climax with the deadly trap is especially well-done; readers will be on the edge of their proverbial seats until the surprising outcome. More fundamentally, Hardy's writing is profoundly emotional; he was deeply in touch with the uber-sensitive chords buried deep in humanity's very heart, striking them with power and precision. The Woodlanders is highly moving, shot full of pathos as well as other feelings and thoughts through which Hardy moves us with true artistry.

This is a fine novel that is essential for anyone even remotely interested in Hardy - a true classic deserving more popularity and acclaim. We must not let it linger in the woods.

As for this edition, it has a wealth of supplemental material, making it ideal for serious readers:Hardy's Prefaces to the novel and a collected edition of his works; an excellent introduction giving substantial background on Hardy, the book, and the historical context plus some initial analysis; a chronology; extensive notes; an overview of critical reaction to the novel; further reading suggestions; and chapter summaries. One could hardly ask for more.

Foreshadowing Tess
The Woodlanders is said to be one of Hardy's more descriptive novels and Hardy is also said to have a love for this part of the country. I thought this was a beautiful passage:

"From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed with lichen and stockinged with moss. At their roots were stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apricots, and tall fungi with more stem than stool. Next were more trees close together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was the struggle between these neighbors that she had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting stumps of those of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from their mossy setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves--variety upon variety, dark green and pale green; moss-like little fir-trees, like plush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss."

And this description of Winterborne as a wood-god really stood out for me:

"He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in alternation; sometimes leafy, and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of the plantations; sometimes cider-stained, and with apple-pips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on his return from cider-making in White Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him."

It is said that Winterborne was a creation derived from Hardy's own father.

The book also has the typical Hardy realism and tragedy based on innocence and wrong choices, the unfair position of women, mere chance, or should I say Chance, in keeping with the way Hardy uses it.For me, somehow, the more descriptive nature of the book, while not that descriptive--Hardy is a realist not a romantic, gave the book a hazy, almost somnolent quality that almost distracted from the clarity and meaning of the book. Maybe it was Hardy's intention to have the woods form a kind of shadowy hold over the characters, the readers--there's the strange effect a single tree had on Winterborne's father, and another on Grace. But Hardy's description of the moors in Return of the Native had more power for me. Also, the characters seemed undeveloped to me, especially Grace, who was a main character. Marty seemed more real, though maybe that was intentional as the book ends with her, and poor Grace floated un-fixedly in the non-place between two classes.

I love Hardy's novels and poetry otherwise I may have given it 3 stars. I just read it--it may be I need to ruminate on it for awhile.

Visit Wessex in the Woodlanders and Savor the prose of Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders is the eleventh novel by Thomas Hardy. Hardy takes us to an obscure village in his mythical Wessex. The novel portrays the beautiful Grace Melbury a nubile young miss coddled by her parents; eager for glamour and disdainful of bucolic boredom. Grace is courted by Giles Winterbourne a local rustic but cast him off to wed Dr. Edred Fitzpiers the local doctor. The marriage is a disaster for Fitzper lusts for Madame Charmond. He also has a fling with Suke a local girl.
Fitzpiers flees to the Continent while Grace seeks reconciliation with
Winterborne. The couple hope to wed under a newly passed Parliamentary
law dealing with the right of women to obtain a divorce.
All goes wrong. Accidents occur as chance and fortune always play a part in the Hardy world. The novel does end happily which is rare for Hardy.
Hardy knew the English countryside as it moved from spring to winter.
His description of nature is beautifully written. Hardy also knew the south of England as it was moving from the rural nineteenth century to the modern world of the coming twentieth century.
The Woodlanders is one of the lesser known Hardy novels that is well worth your attention. The story is well told with many interesting and exciting plot developments which will hold the attention. Well recommended.

Disaster at the altar in the church of Hardy.
"It would have made a beautiful story," Thomas Hardy said about this novel, "if I could have carried out my idea of it; but somehow I come so far short of my intention."

"I wish you had never thought of educating me," Thomas Hardy's protagonist tells her father at one point in this novel, "because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles" (pp. 232-33). Hardy (1840-1928) wrote his eleventh novel in 1887, before his better-known masterpieces, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES (1891) and JUDE THE OBSCURE (1895), and a year after THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (1886). Set in the "partly real and partly dream country" of Hardy's Wessex, in the "sequestered" forest community of Little Hintock (located "outside the gates of the world," p. 6), a place where "loneliness is not so very lonely after a while" (p. 83), THE WOODLANDERS is about doomed love, betrayal, and social restraints, and like Hardy's other work, it succeeds as a satisfying story of a romantic disaster in Hardy's cruel universe. The novel tells the sad tale of a woman, Grace Melbury, forced to choose marriage between two suitors of different social statures, Giles Winterborne, a local woodlander with a gentle, virtuous nature, and Edred Fitzpiers, an ambitious doctor and a scoundrel. Influenced by her well-intentioned though meddling father, Mr. Melbury, who only wants his daughter to "marry well" (p. 89), Grace's decision ultimately leads to disastrous consequences and, in the end, to a lonely woman worshipping at a dead man's grave. Once again, we discover the course of love is never happy in Hardy's universe.

Rather gloomy for a Victorian romance novel? Well, yes. But reading Victorian fiction does not get any better than reading Thomas Hardy's extraordinary novels. Returning to Hardy's brooding, melancholy fiction after my first encounter with his novels more than twenty five years ago, I am re-discovering Hardy's brilliant ability to convey familiar, primordial truths through his fiction, making him worth reading again and again.

G. Merritt

Hardy gone berserk
Hardy classified THE WOODLANDERS with his Novels of Character and Ingenuity, which category included his very best novels (TESS, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE). This 1887 novel is so bizarre, however, that you might feel it belongs more properly with his Romances and Fantasies. In the secluded rustic community of Little Hintock all manner of things are a-brewing: simple Marty South has a thing for cider-merchant Giles Winterbourne, who has been promised for years to marry well-educated Grace Melbury, but Grace's father marries her off instead to philandering Edred Fitzpiers, who has a thing for local wealthy widow Felice Charmond. In this circle of desire all manner of things can go wrong--and, this being Hardy, of course they do. Some of his wildest plot contrivances (including two bizarre scenes wherein the Widow Charmond must convey crucial information to Grace, and Fitzpiers even more crucial information to Grace's father) occur without the redeeming Shakespearean scope of a novel like THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE which allows you to overlook the wackiness. Still, even if this is lesser Hardy, it's still Hardy, so the novel has such poetically gorgeous evocations of landscape and character as to make everything worthwhile in the end. ... Read more

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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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Surprisingly Good
Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy's first published novel, is far from his best but surprisingly quite good and, indeed, somewhat underrated. Despite some limitations - I hesitate to call them "faults" - that Hardy later overcame, it is an engaging, suspenseful read that holds up rather well after almost a century and a half. It is a novel by a young beginning writer full of promise; though it infamously got several very bad reviews, at least a few critics rightly saw that its author could someday produce greatness. Fans and scholars will delight in these budding elements and much else related to Hardy in embryo, while the significant differences from his other novels may even attract those who do not normally like him.

Hardy later improved on all the book's strengths, but there are, to its benefit, several similarities to his great later works. Not least is a strong sense of place, perhaps Hardy's most important and characteristic novelistic asset. He is rightly known for vivid, often detailed, and sometimes strikingly lyrical descriptions of settings and for moving them beyond mere background to become an integral part of the story. This last is not reached here, but the descriptions are well above the norm, and we can see Hardy's progress toward works where setting is so important that it almost becomes a character. The official launching of Wessex - the part-real, part-dream country, based on his native Southwest England, that Hardy made world famous - did not occur until his fourth published novel, but he was clearly already working toward it. This is not a proto-Wessex novel in the sense that his next two books are, but the setting is a rural England based on Hardy's own area and quite memorably sketched.

The portrait of the heroine, Cytherea, is also striking - the first of Hardy's many great heroines. She is skillfully and realistically drawn, quickly gaining sympathy and interest; we feel for and with her vividly lifelike character. Like Hardy's more famous heroines, she is to a large degree idealized - incredibly beautiful, intelligent, and educated yet innocent and naïve. She is notably strong and independent for a female literary character of the era, clearly showing that Hardy had a far higher view of women than most people of his time, especially men. However, also like his more famous heroines, she is not perfect but must fight a tendency to be overly trusting and a dependent streak. The many feminists interested in Hardy's work will find much to fascinate them in this early depiction.

The author's preface admits that, even after Hardy became acclaimed, the book was praised almost exclusively for this character. He as usual sells himself short, but it is certainly true that characterization is not the book's strength. Hardy later improved his characterization to the point of mastery, creating some of the era's most memorable characters, but here Cytherea stands well above the rest of the book's cast. Her lover Edward Springrove, whom Hardy says he based closely on someone he knew, is believable and memorable, but other characters are stock cutouts to various extents. Her brother is the most well-drawn among them, with an appealing intelligence reminiscent of later Hardy characters, but his overbearing paternalism smacks of stock Victorian male types, however lifelike. Cytherea's employer, Miss Aldclyffe, is even more conventional - the grim and dominating but mysterious rich lady with a hidden heart quite familiar in Victorian fiction. Worst of all, though, is her son Aeneas, whose villainy is pushed to such extremes that it is not only highly implausible but sometimes even bordering on unintentionally comic. These deficiencies are interesting in that they make Cytherea stand out even more but keep the book significantly below Hardy's later great work.

The real weak spot, though, is the plot. That said, it is weak only by the highest literary standards and in comparison to Hardy's later masterpieces. Leading Victorian critic George Meredith read Hardy's first written novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, and suggested he write a book with more plot. Hardy took his advice, putting much of the book into Desperate Remedies and eventually destroying the rest. However, by his own admission, he took the advice rather too far. Hardy became known for complex plots, but ambition outran him here; the plot is not only needlessly convoluted but also overly melodramatic. He also became identified with heavy use of highly wrought coincidence; many have criticized him for it at the time and even now, and it is a large part of the reason some do not like his fiction. Yet many fail to realize that he did it deliberately and carefully as a way of advancing his deterministic views. There is much of it here, but unlike in later works, melodrama and generally overcomplicated implausibility push it over the proverbial top. Anyone expecting a realist novel will be sorely disappointed, and the book is also not well-done enough to be classed in the naturalist genre that Hardy helped make famous.

Even so, taken on its own terms, the plot is quite engaging; highly suspenseful and very entertaining, it grabs interest quickly and does not let go. It is almost the mid-Victorian equivalent of today's cinematic thriller. Indeed, there are several interesting things going on at once. One thread is a love story of the sort Hardy later specialized in; it has strong verisimilitude and great emotion, making it well worth reading for fans and those who appreciate such stories. Uniquely in Hardy's long career, another thread is a dark murder mystery of the sort Victorian fiction made immortal. Indeed, though it has almost never gotten credit for it, Desperate Remedies is an important early entry in what became known as detective fiction; we must remember that Sherlock Holmes was almost two decades in the future. I do not mean to put the novel on the level of that brilliant work in terms of detective fiction, but the mystery is lively and engaging. Anyone who really knows such works is well aware that they can fail like nothing else when handled poorly, but Hardy works this aspect quite dexterously; the tight execution he became revered for is already here to a large degree. Fans and critics used to more typical Hardy plots may well be pleasantly surprised by how deftly he could handle something so seemingly alien to his art, especially at such an early juncture - and may be entertained against their will. More notably, its great difference from later Hardy may even mean that those who dislike his more representative work may find themselves liking his fiction for the first time.

The reason for this strange dichotomy is that Desperate Remedies is essentially an entry in the sensation novel genre. It was then wildly popular but now nearly forgotten and rarely read - with good reason. Desperate Remedies aside, the novels of Wilkie Collins, the genre's master, are basically the only ones still read. Hardy knew the genre was not ideal for him, but the rejection of his first novel and his poems made him desperately and begrudgingly decide that adopting a popular form was the only way he could be published, as the title perhaps slyly and cynically acknowledges. It was an awkward fit; Hardy's talent was too great and idiosyncratic to fit any template, much less such an inappropriate one. The novel is thus a curious mix of conventions and individual brilliance bursting through, perhaps even against Hardy's will. The conventions are well-done, but genre purists thought them less than perfectly handled. This is the result of Hardy's own brand creeping in, which is to the book's great benefit. Desperate Remedies would perhaps be fully forgotten if it were a pure genre entry, but the elements of Hardy's later greatness are in embryo, raising it above a mere sensation novel. Hardy thankfully never restricted himself this way again, which improved his art greatly, but this book's unique status in his canon is not its least appealing aspect.

Fans and scholars will indeed see and appreciate much that is familiar from later works. One of the most obvious is Hardy's unusual prose style. This is clearly an early effort, as he greatly improved his prose, but his characteristic writing is already in evidence. More notable are the strong presences of themes he would return to again and again, primarily sex and class. The former is of course done via Cytherea, but the latter suffuses the whole book. Like many later Hardy characters, Cytherea, her brother, and (especially) Springrove are lower-class people who managed to educate themselves well beyond what was normal. The resulting class complications are memorably dramatized here. The class system's unfairness was a perennial Hardy topic, but this is noteworthy for pushing the issue unusually far; one might almost call it protest literature. It comes across most forcefully in the confrontation between Springrove and Miss Aldclyffe, where even the ostensibly neutral narrator gets in on it. This scene is indeed so heavy-handed that it is arguably authorially intrusive; we get the strong sense that Hardy is pushing a personal issue at the expense of story. It was indeed a sensitive issue because of his humble birth and the setbacks it caused him, not least his future father-in-law's reluctance to let him marry his daughter. One cannot blame Hardy for feeling thus, but it does get in the way of his art here a bit, even if his points are valid and well-made. He realized this himself, toning down some of the harsher passages in later editions when his own position as a famous and rich author became established and age perhaps mellowed him. Hardy made meticulous changes to all his novels when they were reissued, but this perhaps has the most interesting and revealing alterations. Students of his art will certainly want to seek out an edition with footnotes detailing the changes.

This debut novel is also revealing in other ways for those familiar with Hardy's life and thought. For instance, a negative reference to conservatism throws into question his insistence of lifelong indifference to party politics. Perhaps more importantly, there are many elements related to his life, not least many references to architecture, his pre-writing career.

All told, Desperate Remedies is an essential read for fans and critics, while even those who normally dislike Hardy's fiction should check it out. I recommend it especially to fans of sensation novels, detective fiction, gothic literature, and anyone who likes the darker and/or more melodramatic side of Victorian fiction. The novel is so overshadowed by later Hardy that hardly anyone has read it for some time, and it is now quite difficult to procure. This is a shame, as it is very readable and has several hints of greatness. Unless one is willing to chart Hardy's progress chronologically, this should be one of the last Hardy novels anyone should read, but it should be read.

Very confusing
Who am I to review Thomas Hardy?I have read almost all of his novels and this was one I had not read.It was so confusing and really got boring during the last third of the book.

Not your typical Hardy, which is almost a good thing
I think any Literature course covering Thomas Hardy should include a prescription for Prozac along with the syllabus. Hardy's novels are generally brilliant, beautiful, and throughly depressing. Then you come to come to Hardy's first published novel "Desperate Remedies". Definitely "Hardy-Lite" this novel is a sensational, melodramatic story which is very different from the bulk of Hardy's more recognized prose.

the story centers around young Cytherea Graye, who becomes a servant to Miss Auclyffe, a woman with a troubled past. There, she encounters Aeneas Manston, the incredibly handsome and charming steward of Miss Auclyffe, and also a man with a dark secret. He falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful girl and sets out to win her. But alas, Cytherea is already in love with the kind Edward Springrove. Who will ultimately win her? What is the mysterious connection between the steward Manston and Miss Auclyffe? When will people learn not to set fires next to their thatched houses??

I really enjoyed this novel, though at times the melodrama was so thick it was humorous. It reminded me of "Jane Eyre" in many ways, though I felt it was more entertaining than that supposedly great english novel. A lot of twists and turns, very well-written, and an ending very different from your usual Hardy downers. Classic literature? Maybe not, but a fun read and a glimpse of England's greatest novelist before he had mastered his craft.

Good insight into a young Thomas Hardy
This novel provides insights into the young Thomas Hardy, and portends the great things to come. The plot is flawed and probably influenced by his early need to "go commercial", with a quick unveiling of scandal at the end.

The characters are not as well defined, and the writing not as pithy as in his later prose and poetry, and his literary allusions fall somewhat out of context.

Yet it is a good effort for a young architect in his early thirties who has many great novels to come!

lyrical
Hardy is a wonder. This book made me hold my breath. It has the lyrical beauty of poems, and yet the characters are very real people...with compelling stories to tell.

Yes,Hardy is long dead, but I hope thatevery reader will allow themselves the chance to be put under hisspell.

After reading this, I looked at my whole world a littledifferently, and was reminded of the fragility of the human heart. ... Read more

Product Description
"The Ultimate Collection" is proud to present the best stories, novels, poetry and narratives of the most famous authors. All editions have been thoroughly reworked with interactive table-of-contents for easy access to the various parts of the book and have been optimized for Kindle. This edition includes the following writings:


Wessex Poems and Other Verses
Poems of the Past and the Present
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Return of the Native
The Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Jude the Obscure
... Read more

Product Description
Within weeks of Thomas Hardy’s return to his native Dorchester in June 1883, he began to compile his ‘Facts’ notebook, which he kept up throughout the years when he was writing some of his major work - The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure.

From his intensive study of the Dorset County Chronicle for 1826-1830, he noted and summarised into 'Facts' (with the help of his first wife, Emma) hundreds of reports, many of them suggestive 'satires of circumstance', for possible use in his fiction and poems.

Along with extensive reading in memoirs and local histories, this immersion in the files of the old newspaper involved him in a wider experience - the recovery and recognition of the unstable culture of the local past in the post-Napoleonic war years before his birth in 1840, and before the impact of the modernising of the Victorian era.

'Facts' is thus a unique document amongst Hardy's private writings and is here for the first time edited, the text transcribed in 'typographical facsimile' form, together with substantial annotation of the entries and critical and textual introductions. ... Read more

Product Description

This sourcebook offers an introduction to Thomas Hardy's crucial novel, offering:

• a contextual overview, a chronology and reprinted contemporary documents, including a selection of Hardy's poems
• an overview of the book's early reception and recent critical fortunes, as well as a wide range of reprinted extracts from critical works
• key passages from the novel, reprinted with editorial comment and cross-referenced within the volume to contextual and critical documents
• suggestions for further reading and a list of relevant web resources.

For students on a wide range of courses, this sourcebook offers the essential stepping-stone from a basic reading knowledge to an advanced understanding of Hardy's best-known novel.

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
The debut novel of the author of FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. Essentially a mystery novel in the tradition of Wilkie Collins, DESPERATE REMEDIES contains elements of a love story, alongside violence and murder, and a consideration of middle-class women's personal and social values. ... Read more

Product Description
Hardy's first published work, Desperate Remedies moves the sensation novel into new territory. The anti-hero, Aeneas Manston, as physically alluring as he is evil, even fascinates the innocent Cytherea, though she is in love with another man. When he cannot seduce her, Manston resorts to deception, blackmail, bigamy, murder, and rape. Yet this compelling story also raises the great questions underlying Hardy's major novels, which relate to the injustice of the class system, the treatment of women, probability and causality. This edition shows for the first time that the sensation novel was always Hardy's natural genre. It is based on the first edition text, and includes later prefaces and the Wessex Poems "dissolved" into prose. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Surprisingly Good
Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy's first published novel, is far from his best but surprisingly quite good and, indeed, somewhat underrated. Despite some limitations - I hesitate to call them "faults" - that Hardy later overcame, it is an engaging, suspenseful read that holds up rather well after almost a century and a half. It is a novel by a young beginning writer full of promise; though it infamously got several very bad reviews, at least a few critics rightly saw that its author could someday produce greatness. Fans and scholars will delight in these budding elements and much else related to Hardy in embryo, while the significant differences from his other novels may even attract those who do not normally like him.

Hardy later improved on all the book's strengths, but there are, to its benefit, several similarities to his great later works. Not least is a strong sense of place, perhaps Hardy's most important and characteristic novelistic asset. He is rightly known for vivid, often detailed, and sometimes strikingly lyrical descriptions of settings and for moving them beyond mere background to become an integral part of the story. This last is not reached here, but the descriptions are well above the norm, and we can see Hardy's progress toward works where setting is so important that it almost becomes a character. The official launching of Wessex - the part-real, part-dream country, based on his native Southwest England, that Hardy made world famous - did not occur until his fourth published novel, but he was clearly already working toward it. This is not a proto-Wessex novel in the sense that his next two books are, but the setting is a rural England based on Hardy's own area and quite memorably sketched.

The portrait of the heroine, Cytherea, is also striking - the first of Hardy's many great heroines. She is skillfully and realistically drawn, quickly gaining sympathy and interest; we feel for and with her vividly lifelike character. Like Hardy's more famous heroines, she is to a large degree idealized - incredibly beautiful, intelligent, and educated yet innocent and naïve. She is notably strong and independent for a female literary character of the era, clearly showing that Hardy had a far higher view of women than most people of his time, especially men. However, also like his more famous heroines, she is not perfect but must fight a tendency to be overly trusting and a dependent streak. The many feminists interested in Hardy's work will find much to fascinate them in this early depiction.

The author's preface admits that, even after Hardy became acclaimed, the book was praised almost exclusively for this character. He as usual sells himself short, but it is certainly true that characterization is not the book's strength. Hardy later improved his characterization to the point of mastery, creating some of the era's most memorable characters, but here Cytherea stands well above the rest of the book's cast. Her lover Edward Springrove, whom Hardy says he based closely on someone he knew, is believable and memorable, but other characters are stock cutouts to various extents. Her brother is the most well-drawn among them, with an appealing intelligence reminiscent of later Hardy characters, but his overbearing paternalism smacks of stock Victorian male types, however lifelike. Cytherea's employer, Miss Aldclyffe, is even more conventional - the grim and dominating but mysterious rich lady with a hidden heart quite familiar in Victorian fiction. Worst of all, though, is her son Aeneas, whose villainy is pushed to such extremes that it is not only highly implausible but sometimes even bordering on unintentionally comic. These deficiencies are interesting in that they make Cytherea stand out even more but keep the book significantly below Hardy's later great work.

The real weak spot, though, is the plot. That said, it is weak only by the highest literary standards and in comparison to Hardy's later masterpieces. Leading Victorian critic George Meredith read Hardy's first written novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, and suggested he write a book with more plot. Hardy took his advice, putting much of the book into Desperate Remedies and eventually destroying the rest. However, by his own admission, he took the advice rather too far. Hardy became known for complex plots, but ambition outran him here; the plot is not only needlessly convoluted but also overly melodramatic. He also became identified with heavy use of highly wrought coincidence; many have criticized him for it at the time and even now, and it is a large part of the reason some do not like his fiction. Yet many fail to realize that he did it deliberately and carefully as a way of advancing his deterministic views. There is much of it here, but unlike in later works, melodrama and generally overcomplicated implausibility push it over the proverbial top. Anyone expecting a realist novel will be sorely disappointed, and the book is also not well-done enough to be classed in the naturalist genre that Hardy helped make famous.

Even so, taken on its own terms, the plot is quite engaging; highly suspenseful and very entertaining, it grabs interest quickly and does not let go. It is almost the mid-Victorian equivalent of today's cinematic thriller. Indeed, there are several interesting things going on at once. One thread is a love story of the sort Hardy later specialized in; it has strong verisimilitude and great emotion, making it well worth reading for fans and those who appreciate such stories. Uniquely in Hardy's long career, another thread is a dark murder mystery of the sort Victorian fiction made immortal. Indeed, though it has almost never gotten credit for it, Desperate Remedies is an important early entry in what became known as detective fiction; we must remember that Sherlock Holmes was almost two decades in the future. I do not mean to put the novel on the level of that brilliant work in terms of detective fiction, but the mystery is lively and engaging. Anyone who really knows such works is well aware that they can fail like nothing else when handled poorly, but Hardy works this aspect quite dexterously; the tight execution he became revered for is already here to a large degree. Fans and critics used to more typical Hardy plots may well be pleasantly surprised by how deftly he could handle something so seemingly alien to his art, especially at such an early juncture - and may be entertained against their will. More notably, its great difference from later Hardy may even mean that those who dislike his more representative work may find themselves liking his fiction for the first time.

The reason for this strange dichotomy is that Desperate Remedies is essentially an entry in the sensation novel genre. It was then wildly popular but now nearly forgotten and rarely read - with good reason. Desperate Remedies aside, the novels of Wilkie Collins, the genre's master, are basically the only ones still read. Hardy knew the genre was not ideal for him, but the rejection of his first novel and his poems made him desperately and begrudgingly decide that adopting a popular form was the only way he could be published, as the title perhaps slyly and cynically acknowledges. It was an awkward fit; Hardy's talent was too great and idiosyncratic to fit any template, much less such an inappropriate one. The novel is thus a curious mix of conventions and individual brilliance bursting through, perhaps even against Hardy's will. The conventions are well-done, but genre purists thought them less than perfectly handled. This is the result of Hardy's own brand creeping in, which is to the book's great benefit. Desperate Remedies would perhaps be fully forgotten if it were a pure genre entry, but the elements of Hardy's later greatness are in embryo, raising it above a mere sensation novel. Hardy thankfully never restricted himself this way again, which improved his art greatly, but this book's unique status in his canon is not its least appealing aspect.

Fans and scholars will indeed see and appreciate much that is familiar from later works. One of the most obvious is Hardy's unusual prose style. This is clearly an early effort, as he greatly improved his prose, but his characteristic writing is already in evidence. More notable are the strong presences of themes he would return to again and again, primarily sex and class. The former is of course done via Cytherea, but the latter suffuses the whole book. Like many later Hardy characters, Cytherea, her brother, and (especially) Springrove are lower-class people who managed to educate themselves well beyond what was normal. The resulting class complications are memorably dramatized here. The class system's unfairness was a perennial Hardy topic, but this is noteworthy for pushing the issue unusually far; one might almost call it protest literature. It comes across most forcefully in the confrontation between Springrove and Miss Aldclyffe, where even the ostensibly neutral narrator gets in on it. This scene is indeed so heavy-handed that it is arguably authorially intrusive; we get the strong sense that Hardy is pushing a personal issue at the expense of story. It was indeed a sensitive issue because of his humble birth and the setbacks it caused him, not least his future father-in-law's reluctance to let him marry his daughter. One cannot blame Hardy for feeling thus, but it does get in the way of his art here a bit, even if his points are valid and well-made. He realized this himself, toning down some of the harsher passages in later editions when his own position as a famous and rich author became established and age perhaps mellowed him. Hardy made meticulous changes to all his novels when they were reissued, but this perhaps has the most interesting and revealing alterations. Students of his art will certainly want to seek out an edition with footnotes detailing the changes.

This debut novel is also revealing in other ways for those familiar with Hardy's life and thought. For instance, a negative reference to conservatism throws into question his insistence of lifelong indifference to party politics. Perhaps more importantly, there are many elements related to his life, not least many references to architecture, his pre-writing career.

As for which edition to get, the Oxford World's Classics volume is ideal. It has the series' usual supplementary material - introduction, author timeline, notes, etc. -, but this is well above even its usual high standard. The introduction is revelatory, rescuing the novel from the critical toilet and even arguing that the sensation novel was essentially always Hardy's chosen form. I do not quite buy this claim, but it is well-argued and interesting. We also get much fascinating background information, including biographical insights. Finally, the notes are exceptionally useful, highlighting Hardy's sometimes obscure references and again providing much insight.

All told, Desperate Remedies is an essential read for fans and critics, while even those who normally dislike Hardy's fiction should check it out. I recommend it especially to fans of sensation novels, detective fiction, gothic literature, and anyone who likes the darker and/or more melodramatic side of Victorian fiction. The novel is so overshadowed by later Hardy that hardly anyone has read it for some time, and it is now quite difficult to procure. This is a shame, as it is very readable and has several hints of greatness. Unless one is willing to chart Hardy's progress chronologically, this should be one of the last Hardy novels anyone should read, but it should be read.

BOOK REVIEW THOMAS HARDY
Postage took about 3 weeks but certainly worth the wait. Book in very condition, thankyou. Will definitely buy from dealer (all new books)again. Thanx amazon. Melinda ;-)

Fierce Victorian Melodrama
It took me a few years to obtain this (first published but second written) Hardy novel at a reasonable price, (for a while, it was only available for over $100) but it was well worth the wait.Thickly plotted with a generous share of chance and missed opportunities, luxuriously written, seriously dramatic and at times hysterically melodramatic, but very visual, very compelling, almost page-turner suspense.And while spawned from a detective mystery genre, it is fully consciously a Hardy novel, with all the mature concerns of this artist breaking the surface.(Oh what that first novel, the one not published might have been!) ... Read more

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Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
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Rosemarie Morgan provides a challenging reading arguing that, contrary to the accepted critical view, Hardy's heroines do seek control over their conduct and their destinies and this reveals itself in rebellious sexuality. ... Read more

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How does one dominant literary genre fall into decline, to be superseded by another? The classic instance is the rise of the novel in the nineteenth century, and how it came to embody the tragic vision of life which had previously been the domain of drama. Dr King focuses on three novelists, George Eliot. Thomas Hardy and Henry James. All three, while trying to offer a realistic picture of life in prose narrative, wrote with the concept of tragedy clearly in mind. The concern was widespread, and Victorian literary critics found themselves discussing the problem of how one might reconcile concepts as dissimilar as tragedy and realism. Their criticism provides Dr King with her starting point. Dr King examines the work of her three authors in relation to the large concepts of traditional tragic thought, and also examines how the form of specific novels was affected by their differing ideas of tragedy. ... Read more

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As a writer who achieved major eminence in both fiction and poetry and whose engagement with these genres encompassed the period of transition from Victorianism to Modernism, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) enjoys a unique position in English Literary History.Michael Millgate, University Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Toronto is widely recognized as the world’s foremost Thomas Hardy scholar.His contributions to the study of Hardy over more than three decades include his recently ‘revisited’ biography, the seven volume edition of Hardy’s collected letters, and the influential critical study Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist.

In Thomas Hardy Reappraised, editor Keith Wilson pays tribute to Millgate’s many contributions to Hardy studies by bringing together new work by fifteen of the world’s most eminent Hardy scholars.These essays address questions of biblical and literary allusiveness, cultural, historical, and philosophical context, narrative and poetic theory and practice, as well as Hardy’s place in the modern world and his influence on younger writers. Together, the contributors offer one of the most significant reappraisals of Hardy’s work to have appeared since Michael Millgate helped to transform Hardy studies.They offer graphic testimony to Hardy’s enduring popularity and importance.

Contributors:
Pamela Dalziel
Mary Rimmer
Dennis Taylor
Barbara Hardy
U.C. Knoepflmacher
Marjorie Garson
Ruth Bernard Yeazell
Simon Gatrell
J. Hillis Miller
George Levine
Jeremy V. Steele
William W. Morgan
Samuel Hynes
Norman Page
W. J. Keith

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Villagers doomed to die during the year would be seen passing through the church door on May Day. People with physical ailments or deformities could be cured if they touched the hangman's rope while the victim's body was still warm. Such superstitions abounded in the Dorset peasant culture of Hardy's early Victorian childhood. His taste for the supernatural and macabre is seen in this ingenious collection of short stories which show how a great writer could invest strong stories of mystery and suspense with his own brilliant observation and imagination. ... Read more