Read as part of the local "Hardy Readers" book group, that is reading many of Hardy's published works, in order.

This is the first book in the series.

It starts with Cytherea and her brother Owen. Their family back history is given short shrift - the father falls in love, has a relationship, she leaves (the implication being to have his child), and he then marries another woman and has two children - Owen, and Cytherea, who was named after his first love.

Both parents die, leaving little money and Owen barely trained to earn a living, and Cytherea trained to do even less. A short term contract leads Owen to another job and Cytherea in love with Edward. When the need to get another job becomes pressing, Cytherea gets a job as a lady's maid, which she gets through words of mouth. She is separated from Owen who has to get elsewhere to complete his training and earn money. It soon becomes apparent that she is not suitable to be a lady's maid, but the woman she is now employed by (Miss Aldclyffe) is her father's first love. She is kept on as a companion, and a new maid is hired.

Miss Aldclyffe is a capricious character - seemingly prone to whims and changes in direction. After the death of her father, she hires a steward (Aeneas Manston) over some men who are eminently more qualified to do the job, including Edward, Cytherea's love. The implication being that Mantson is her son. Despite being married, Manston falls in love with Cytherea. After the death of his wife in an accidental fire, Manston blackmails Aldclyffe into helping him get Edward married off to his cousin so that the way to Cytherea is clear. Unable to seduce Cytherea, he resorts to blackmail and emotional pressure into making her marry him, even though she doesnt love him.

However, almost immediately after the marriage, doubt is shed over the death of Manston's first wife, and then things start to unravel for Manston.

Review/Commentary[return][return]As to the story itself, I liked it - mystery, true love, blackmail, intrigue, murder - really, what's not to like?[return][return]As far as I'm concerned, the thing I didnt like was the execution. He did lose me during volume 2, as something I dislike about Hardy's work is his reliance on/habit of "implication". Time and again things are implied (I want to read Tess again to see if it's just as annoying there as I remember too), with things rarely being made explicit or concrete. Manston 's wife does write to Aldclyffe to essentially blackmail her, and I think that's the most concrete statement about Manston's parentage in the whole book almost right to the end.[return][return]I have to admit that things did pick up in Volume 3, and did turn my review of the book around - it was not going to be a good review! If only the whole book had been this good! [return][return]Hardy was either not comfortable with or did not enjoy writing dialogue. Whole passages/pages are spent without a word of dialogue being put down on the page. [return][return]The book is split into sub chapters, some of which covering a matter of minutes or hours, some covering months. Each sub chapter had a heading detailing the time period it covered. I was trying to decide whether I liked this format or not, but decided that the pace suffered in switching from the minute to the epic scale and back within chapters.

As I mentioned earlier, Aldclyffe is capricious and moody. Some of her behaviour is explainable - e.g. her desire to bring Manston to the estate results in her excluding people more qualified for the job but some of it isnt. Her behaviour when she realises who Cytherea is is slightly disturbing, over the top, and uncomfortable - a scene that Hardy himself was not happy with (according to the notes) with the implication that it might be construed as a Lesbian scene, and not a scene I think he corrected particularly well. Her desire (and what she's prepared to resort to) to get Cytherea to marry Manston is not altogether clear until the very last pages of the book. She disappears for most of the second half of the book only to appear again in the last few chapters.

Cytherea is a strange character as well. In some ways she's strong - she rejects Manston for a long time, and evaluates the situation before she finally accepts. However, she's also quite "weak" - some might call it naive.

Edward was always going to be "the hero" and "the one true love" and is a quietly strong man, stuck in a moment waiting for his love.[return][return]Owen is much like his sister, weak and naive, and a little undeveloped. ( )

Not bad at all. It did drag a bit toward the end with the slow reveals of the various bits of mystery. I much prefer simple tragedy from Hardy to this more Dickensian stuff. That's no slight to Dickens--I just like Hardy as Hardy, not Dickens. ( )

Sabriel by Garth Nix.
Sabriel Is a good fantasy book that explores a world of magic and necromancy, Sabriel is a girl who is pushed into a place that she is not ready yet, she accepts the role so she can find her father and save the Old Kingdom, Sabriel is my first Garth Nix book ( )

This starts out slow and you're almost yawning, but by the end you're figuratively sitting on the edge of your seat. A brother and sister are left orphans when their architect father tumbles from the tower work he's supervising. The brother, not yet completed his architect apprenticeship, can't yet support his sister. Cytherea advertises first as a governess, and finally as a lady's maid, to try to support herself (this is mid-nineteenth century England). The crabby rich woman who hires her, hates her as a maid, but Cytherea softens her heart with her sweetness and grace, and allows herself to be talked into remaining as her companion. There are a lot of secrets going on with this rich lady, though, and the author is a master of twists and turns of plot. I could hardly wait to learn all the answers to my questions about Manston, and Cytherea's tocaya. A thriller mystery that does not disappoint. ( )

3.5 stars, rounded down. Still a very well written novel.

Desperate Remedies was Thomas Hardy’s first published novel, and while failing to live up to his later works, it foreshadows the brilliant author he would come to be. In a Thomas Hardy channels Wilkie Collins fashion, this novel is a bit of a mystery novel, and lacks the depth of idea development that makes Hardy one of my favorite authors. By three-quarters of the way through, I had guessed at most of the riddles that had been set for us and had a clear idea of exactly where the plot was going.

You might think this would have made the reading less enjoyable, but I find Hardy’s remarkable character development and descriptions are fascinating, even in a lesser work. He can describe an activity, in this novel it was cider pressing, with such amazing detail, that you can picture vividly the men at work and thrill with understanding the mechanics of a skill that is literally now lost in time.

Thrust into poverty at the death of her father, a young girl, Cytherea, is forced to seek employment as a lady’s maid, and takes up that station with a woman who turns out to be the love of her father’s life who slipped through his fingers under strange circumstances. Cytherea is an exceptionally lovely girl, and she becomes the object of desire for two men; but her love-life proves to be anything but a simple and straight-forward affair.

There is a great deal of backroom plotting and inexplicable interference in Cytherea’s life by her lady employer, Mrs. Aldclyffe, some false information to overcome and some errors in judgment that make one cringe. The story is neatly tied at the end, no pesky strands left unresolved. From another author, this book might have garnered an extra star. In this case, the author is Thomas Hardy, and the comparison cannot help but be made with his masterpieces, in which case this book falls a tad short.

I am on a quest to read all of Hardy’s works, and I am pleased to have read this one. It was a pleasant way to ease myself back into a reading mode, something I had left behind me, out of necessity, for the last few months.
( )

Ambrose Graye fell hopelessly in love with a young woman named Cytherea. But, then suddenly, Cytherea disappeared without a trace. Ambrose mourned her loss his whole life. He did, however, get married a few years after Cytherea's disappearance and had two children, a son Owen and a daughter, whom he named Cytherea.

Ambrose was an architect and took Owen into business with him. But, when Ambrose died, his business was in a shambles and Owen and his sister Cytherea fled to another part of the country. Ambrose apprenticed himself for a short time to another architect. One of his coworkers was a young man named Edward Springrove. At some point, Springrove and Cytherea became hopelessly in love with each other. But, the course of love, at least in olden times, was not smooth.

Cytherea needed some occupation because Owen wasn't making all that much money. She eventually became a lady's maid at the manor of Miss Aldclyffe, apparently a spinster of about 46. There were some issues, but Miss Aldclyffe fell in love with Cytherea and converted her to a companion. There's an actual lesbian love scene in the book (seemed weird to me for Victorian times, but what do I know?)

Well, it turns out that Edward Springrove lives in the neighborhood, and Miss Aldclyffe doesn't want him attached to her Cytherea. That's sort of solved because Edward is sorta engaged to a cousin, Adelaide Hinton.

Miss Aldclyffe has other plans for Cytherea. She goes into an extended system of selecting a new steward to overlook her estates. Although Edward Stringrove is clearly the most promising of the candidates, Miss Aldclyffe picks another, one Aeneas Marston. Actually, she went to great lengths to get Marston to apply for the job and then accept it.

But, things aren't smooth. It turns out that Marston might have a wife already. Then, said wife may or may not have died. Well, lots of things happen. The book is full of spooky foreboding, dark shadows, sounds in the night, mysterious appearances and disappearances, and so forth. For some reason, I found it to be quite engaging. I suppose it's not quite up to a 4* book, but I'd likely give it 3* , were GoodReads to allow such.
( )

In poco meno di un mese ho letto il romanzo d’esordio di Thomas Hardy; il suo primo romanzo per lui e il primo suo romanzo per me. Una fantastica scoperta.
Non avendo mai letto prima quest’autore, non sapevo cosa mi sarei trovata davanti una volta cominciata la lettura; questa, come tante altre, è stata una di quelle letture “al buio”.
Lette le prime pagine non avrei mai pensato che avrei potuto leggere quel che poi ho letto: una storia di intrecci familiari ricca di colpi di scena inaspettati, suspense, quasi da romanzo poliziesco… e un omicidio. Questo è stato il penultimo colpo di scena che mi ha lasciato a bocca aperta. Perché sì, all’inizio, la prima impressione che ho avuto è stata: è come Jane Austen, ma scritto da un uomo. Forse perché infondo Hardy ha saputo parlare e scrivere delle donne alla stessa maniera superba e impeccabilmente profonda e realistica con cui la Austen scrive degli uomini. Forse per le vicende, per i due uomini contendenti, uno “buono” e uno “cattivo”; e di quello buono ci si innamora subito come in Jane Austen, vero? No.
Edward Springrove non è stato per me quell’uomo che ho amato con un colpo di fulmine; mi piaceva, inizialmente, ma non lo amavo… non ancora. Era, nelle prime pagine, un uomo passivo alla propria vita, quasi invisibile e vuoto, senza carattere. Mi è bastata una pagina, mi è bastata una frase per farmi cambiare completamente idea su di lui. Perché si è trasformato, repentinamente, mostrando il vero uomo sepolto in sé stesso, mostrando decisione e prontezza, diventando attivo, coraggioso e dannatamente affascinante. Ha preso posizione, ha preso l’iniziativa e si è buttato nel vuoto per l’amore più puro e tenero che un uomo possa provare. Da quel momento in poi l’ho amato.
Per quanto riguarda l’altro uomo, Manston, invece i miei sentimenti nei suoi confronti mi erano perfettamente chiari dal primo momento: odio puro. E senza un motivo apparente, all’inizio, ma sono bastate poche pochissime righe per farmi capire il perché non lo sopportassi affatto. Ogni suo fallimento è stata immancabile fonte di gioia per me, così come ogni colpo di scena che lo riguardava.
Al centro di tutto c’è lei, Cytherea Graye. La protagonista, è lei che non riesco ancora ad inquadrare. Ragazza umile e buona… ecco, troppo buona, una bontà che, in certi passi, mi ha veramente irritata. Ma è questo che voleva Hardy per lei ed è perfettamente riuscito nel suo intento. È una protagonista perfetta, per questo romanzo, protagonista buona e gentile, paziente e sempre pronta a perdonare, come quando nell’ultimo capitolo prima dell’Epilogo ha perdonato Miss Aldclyffe, un perdono che, francamente, non mi sarei mai aspettata, ma che le calzava a pennello.

Thomas Hardy è dunque stato in grado di costruire un romanzo degno di nota, gotico e giallo a un tempo, rispettando perfettamente i canoni dell’epoca, scrivendo come solo un vero poeta e un vero scrittore possono scrivere; lui era entrambe le cose e la prosa del romanzo rispecchia perfettamente questa sua qualità.
Un libro che ho amato moltissimo, che mi ha tenuto sveglia la notte, che mi ha tenuto lo sguardo incollato alle sue pagine fino alla fine.
Come si suol dire: “A mali estremi, estremi rimedi.” ( )

woman pressure to marry unacknowledged son of benefactress who has been her father's first love, complications--is his first wife truly dead?

Although this read more like a Gothic Romance than the typical Hardy it was still a very enjoyable read with a mostly happy ending for the romantic couple. As with many of the Gothic Romance novels, there was a great deal of coincidence to make the plots work out and,of course, the dark secrets finally revealed. I did expect Miss Aldwych to have a much darker secret in her bizarre treatment of both Cytherea and Manston but all was revealed and the happy ending achieved. Plus, I have now read all of Hardy's prose. I have been advised to try his drama The Dynasts but I may wait a bit to return to Hardy, I t has been a very good experience but I have other authors I would like to dig into.

This is Hardy's first published novel and it displays a number of themes that became staples of his prose works: an affair of the heart thwarted by circumstance, the effects of low social mobility, coincidence influencing the course of protagonists' lives. It does not bring social commentary to the fore-front, however. Instead the reader is propelled through the story by an urge to solve mysteries, one of which is not entirely cleared up until the final pages.

It is interesting to contrast the heroine, her family and lover with other characters in the book; the former are bland and vague, somewhat stereo-typical in comparison to the more minor, rural charcters who come to life instantly through Hardy's intimate knowledge of the local dialect. The scenes where they appear are used in large part to convey local gossip without having to have a major protagonist awkwardly have to express the information or learn it in a manner otherwise unrelated to the plot.

Desperate Remedies sits neither in the top rank of Hardy's novels, nor in the bottom; it has the great merit of not having been interfered with by editors but it lacks the anger that seethes through the major Tragedies and the ironic wit displayed by the endings of The Woodlanders or A Laodician but it is certainly worth the time of any Hardy fan. ( )

“Desperate Remedies” differs greatly from all other works by Thomas Hardy. This is his attempt at "the sensational novel", and I for one feel he succeeds well.

While Hardy’s genius isn’t at its greatest here, he still delivers a quality narrative with plenty of engaging scenes and an interesting plot. ( )

Hardy's first novel, typical of him for the descriptions of the countryside and weather and love entanglements, but unusual in that it developes into a mystery with an increasingly fiendish villain.

But within the story Hardy sheds light on the social and economic horrors of the day. He sympathetically portrays the plight of Cytheria, whose only option is to become a lady's companion, dependent upon an eccentric employer, and then forced into marriage when illness threatens destitution for her brother. ( )

A late 1800's English countryside romance of sorts that is chock-full of curious mysteries that kept me in the dark until clarified at the end. And this book has deceit, death, bigamy, murder, suicide, and of course, the big country manor house. Slightly convoluted with a full slate of remarkable coincidences, but interesting enough that i was eager for the end to answer all my questions. Better than i expected. ( )

I have joined a Thomas Hardy reading group and this is the first book we have read because it was the first one he published. In form it is somewhat like Woman in White by Wilkie Collins rather than Hardy's better known books which are character studies more than anything. The last third of the book really picks up and became quite a page-turner.

Cytherea Graye goes to be a maid/companion to Miss Aldclyffe. When Miss Aldclyffe was young she had met and was loved by Miss Graye's father but, for unknown reasons, she had refused his offer to marry. Shortly after Cytherea arrives at Knapwater House, Miss Aldclyffe's father dies leaving Miss Aldclyffe in possession of a considerable estate. She hires a steward named Manston and is anxious for Cytherea and Manston to marry. Cytherea though has fallen in love with Edward Springrove, a colleague of her architect brother. The Springroves are tenants of Miss Aldclyffe's and Cytherea learns that Edward is engaged to his cousin. She then takes Manston more seriously. However, Manston is not a single man and his wife turns up one evening. Then, during a fire, the wife disappears and is deemed to have died in the fire. So the way appears clear for Cytherea and Manston to marry. And that's when it starts getting interesting.

Unlike a lot of Hardy, there is a happy ending so keep reading. ( )

Kindle - Hardy Collection

His first book, and so first in Ali's reading challenge book group reads. A real pot-boiler with hidden wives and lost letters, reminiscent of "The Woman in White" and the racier Francis Brett Youngs, and with distinct touches of the Gothic. But it does also iinclude some lovely descriptive and nature writing that we'll see blossom later on. ( )

Although this one doesn't contain the sort of pastoral scenes with which we often associate Thomas Hardy, it does instead have all (and I mean all) the ingredients of the Sensation novel, which was very popular at the time this novel was written. Maybe it could be seen as a sort of 1870's pot boiler - but boy oh boy - it's a page turner. Still we can see many of Hardy's later preoccupations emerging in this novel. In keeping with the gothic/sensation genre is the character Aneas Marston a marvelous hateful villain, and Edward Springrove a hero who is a tiny bit dull by comparison - but ever so nice. In Cytherea we have beautiful heroine of course who is good and gentle - and a happy ending? well I'm not telling - ( )

Desparate Remedies, Thomas Hardy's first published novel, is a story of blackmail, murder and romance. When Cytherea, a newly impoverished young woman, takes a position with Miss Aldclyffe as a ladies' maid, she is surprised to learn that Miss Aldclyffe also bears the unusual name of Cytherea. Is there a mysterious connection between the two women?

Before becoming Miss Aldclyffe's maid, Cytherea was in love with Edward. She still loves Edward, but has had to break off the relationship when she discovered he had other obligations. Mr. Manston, Miss Adlclyffe's steward, admires and ultimately falls in love with Cytherea. Although he is dark and brooding (influenced by his name, probably, I pictured him as Charles Manson), Miss Aldclyffe unaccountably favors him and urges Cyntherea to accept his offers of marriage. Why is Miss Aldclyffe so anxious she marry Mr. Manston? Is there something going on between Mr. Manston and Miss Aldclyffe?

This novel has most, if not all, of the elements of the Victorian 'Sensation Novel': bigamous marriages, misdirected letters, romantic triangles, heroines in physical danger, drugs/potions/poisons, characters who adopt disguises, strained coincidences. On top of these melodramatic elements, there is an incident that can only be described as a lesbian love scene--at least to me it seemed to go far beyond what I've read of the affection Victorian women displayed to one another.

Much less titillating is the scene in which Cytherea and Edward first recognized their love for one another, as they are rowing in a boat:

'The boat was so small that at each return of the sculls, when his hands came forward to begin the pull, they approached so near to her that her vivid imagination began to thrill her with the fancy that he was going to clasp his arms around her. The sensation grew so strong that she could not run the risk of again meeting his eyes at those critical moments, and turned aside to inspect the distant horizon; then she grew weary of looking sideways, and was driven to return to her natural position again. At this instant he again leant forward to begin, and met her glance by an ardent gaze. An impulse of girlish embarassment caused her to give a vehement pull at the tiller-rope, which brought the boat's head round til they stood directly for shore.'

And then: 'She breathed more quickly and warmly; he took her right hand in his own right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind her neck til it came round to her left cheek; it was not thrust away. Lightly pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards his own; when at this, the very brink, some unaccountable thought or spell within him suddenly made him halt--even now, and as it seemed as much to himself as to her, he timidly whispered, 'May I?''

Ah--they don't write love scenes like that anymore, do they? Still, this book is much weaker than Hardy's other novels. Cytherea is innocent and artless. I much prefer Sue of Jude the Obscure. ( )

Loved Thomas Hardy when I was in high school, mostly because one of my teachers kept going on (and on) about Julie Christie as Bathsheba in the movie version of "Far From the Madding Crowd." Yeesh. What a thing to remember. Anyhow, had never read this Hardy before, and could not put it down. And that comment is about 75% good and the rest bad to ambivalent. It had everything in it - identity theft and hoax, suicide (or was it really an accidental fall?) and murder (2X), a very descriptive arson, blackmail and extortion and my personal favourite, a pseudo lesbian scene that had me wondering how it got published in the first place. Mind you, it doesn't flow in places, it PLOWS through, which means Hardy probably thought that if he threw in the kitchen sink re STUFF, he'd get published. It worked. I could not put it down because goddammit I had to find out who was who, who was actually murdered, and who marries whom - in the end. Give it a go, and with this one, I DO suggest red wine, and an ability to flip through the long winded sections describing the Dorset countryside. I've been there, and words, no matter how good, don't do it justice. Well, the undeveloped bits anyways. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/sep08.html#hardydr ( )

4025. Desperate Remedies A Novel, by Thomas Hardy (read 20 May 2005) This book, published in 1871, was Hardy's first published work. This is a pretty creaky novel, as Hardy when it was republished, admitted. The early part had considerable interest, but after Cytherea escaped from the man she went thru a wedding ceremony with, things got to be goofy and the man turned out to be far more evil than was foreshadowed. The book, despite its distinguished author, is only just readable. ( )

This was Thomas Hardy’s first published novel and it seems that in an attempt to become established he chose the popular genre of sensation. 'Desperate Remedies' has all the ingredients of such a novel - identity fraud, murder, detection, and atmosphere - but felt more like a Wilkie Collins novel than a Hardy. The writing seemed detached and it lacked the poetry and description that made 'Far From the Madding Crowd' such a memorable, absorbing and beautiful novel. However, what 'Desperate Remedies' lacked in Hardy’s usual writing quality gained in plot and I found it an enjoyable and compulsive read that left me guessing right to the end - with the pace and excitement picking up during the last 100 pages. A recommended read. ( )