VICTORIAN TRILOGY: Desperate Remedies, The Hand of Ethelberta & A Laodicean (Illustrated Edition): Three Romance Classics in One Volume

by Thomas Hardy, George du Maurier

"Desperate Remedies" – A young woman, Cytherea Graye, is forced by poverty to accept a post as lady's maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had been unable to marry. Cytherea loves a young architect, Edward Springrove, but Miss Adclyffe's machinations, the discovery that Edward is already engaged to a woman whom he does not love, and the urgent need to support a sick brother drive Cytherea to accept the hand of Aeneas Manston, Miss Adclyffe's illegitimate son, whose first wife is believed to have perished in a fire. "The Hand of Ethelberta" – Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but, through her work as a governess, married well at the age of eighteen. Her husband died soon after the wedding and, now twenty-one, Ethelberta lives with her mother-in-law. In the three years that have elapsed since the death of her husband, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privilege, making a career as a famous poet and storyteller. Beautiful, clever, and rational, she easily attracts four very persistent suitors, but is reluctant to give her much-coveted hand. "A Laodicean" – Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who has purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs George Somerset, a newly qualified architect from London. He shows an interest in Paula, as well as Captain De Stancy, an impoverished scion of the family. Paula is attracted to both of them for their different virtues but William Dare, an illegitimate son of Captain De Stancy and an amateur photographer, helps his father by counterfeiting a telegram and a photograph to make Somerset look bad. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth.

728 pages, Paperback

Published July 3, 2022

About the author

Thomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain.

The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Kathi Sharp]

Desperate Remedies starts slow but builds suspense quickly. I wasn't sure if I wanted Cytherea to marry Edward but I was absolutely sure there was something off with Mr. Manston. The plot was a little complicated but I was happy to ride along. Hardy has a beautiful way of setting a scene. He's also quite funny at times.

Currently reading Desperate Remedies for the Thomas Hardy readalong hosted by Jen the Librarian.
Jun: Desperate Remedies
Jul: Under the Greenwood Tree
Aug: A Pair of Blue Eyes
Sep: Far from the Madding Crowd
Oct: The Hand of Ethelberta
Nov: The Return of the Native
Dec: The Trumpet-Major
Jan: A Laodicean 
Feb: Two on a Tower
Mar: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Apr: The Woodlanders
May: Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Jun: The Well-Beloved
Jul: Jude the Obscure