Desperate Remedies is Thomas Hardy's first published novel, a sensation novel of mystery, secrecy and troubled love set in and around Wessex. It follows characters drawn into entanglement and moral uncertainty, and is worth hearing for its suspenseful early Hardy atmosphere.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
DESPERATE REMEDIES By Thomas Hardy PREFATORY NOTE I. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS IV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY V. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY VI. THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURS VII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS VIII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS IX. THE EVENTS OF TEN WEEKS X. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT XI. THE EVENTS OF FIVE DAYS XII. THE EVENTS OF TEN MONTHS
XIII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY XIV. THE EVENTS OF FIVE WEEKS XV. THE EVENTS OF THREE WEEKS XVI. THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEK XVII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY XVIII. THE EVENTS OF THREE DAYS XIX. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT XX. THE EVENTS OF THREE HOURS XXI. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN HOURS SEQUEL PREFATORY NOTE The following story, the first published by the author, was written nineteen years ago, at a time when he was feeling his way to a method. The principles observed in its composition are, no doubt, too exclusively those in which mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral obliquity are depended on for exciting interest; but some of the scenes, and at least one of the characters, have been deemed not unworthy of a little longer preservation; and as they could hardly be reproduced in a fragmentary form the novel is reissued complete—the more readily that it has for some considerable time been reprinted and widely circulated in America. January 1889. To the foregoing note I have only to add that, in the
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