Desperate Remedies: Thomas Hardy

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.