Desperate Remedies

Hardy's first published novel - before this there was a novel that was refused on the grounds of offending the upper classes. But to be fair, this isn't all that good. 

Hardy had already had his real debut novel turned down, and he thought his best chance was getting into crime mysteries.  Hence this amazingly melodramatic novel.  

It's got a certain ingenuity; it's a murder mystery with chases and various potential dangers to womenly modesty.  But its main interest is the clues it gives to where Hardy was going in the future. There are smock-frocked yokels by the yard, a tortured hero, and an innocent yet strangely gormless heroine. So that draws the parallels with Tess, Far from the Madding Crowd and Under the Greenwood Tree, not to mention The Return of the Native. But this one is too far-fetched, too strange by half.  However, there is a really good description of communal cider-making. 

Worst of all, Hardy peppers it with quotations from French and Latin, like anyone was supposed to know what he was talking about. A shame he didn't run it past his mum before he sent it off to the publishers. 

My favourite bit is the case of the drunken postman - anyone who can walk every day from Anglebury (Wareham) to Mellstock (Stinsford) and back for a living deserves to get drunk first thing in the morning if you ask me.