Three Experiments in Form

Abstract

Hardy’s first published work of fiction, Desperate Remedies, was issued anonymously by Tinsley Brothers in 1871 and was paid for by Hardy himself. The story was the direct result of his following George Meredith’s advice to ‘attempt a novel with a purely artistic purpose’, and to give it more plot than his previous attempt at fiction, the unsuccessful The Poor Man and the Lady. When Hardy wrote his second story, he zealously followed Meredith’s suggestions, turning out an intricate melodrama that has plot in abundance. Unfortunately, Desperate Remedies clearly illustrates Hardy’s somewhat amateurish contention that ‘a story, to be interesting, must be complicated and full of exciting events’, a theory which undoubtedly originated in his youthful reading of gothic fiction. The novel itself contains â death-fall from a church tower, subsequent pitiable poverty for the children of the victim, a bizarre murder (the body is buried, exhumed, and reburied), a suicide, several ghosts and accompanying death rattles in the night, an intrigue centring on a bastard son, an involved chase scene, an attempted rape and the inevitable fight between hero and villain. Fortunately, a rigid time scheme guides the reader through this labyrinth, and consequently the strands of the story are seldom ravelled, as they sometimes are in Dickens, for example.