Riassunto
Riassunto di Rimedi disperati
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love Victorian plots full of secrets and suspense, and anyone curious about where Hardy began. It also suits readers drawn to country-house mysteries and the ways money and class shape a woman's choices.
Che cos’è questo libro
Desperate Remedies was the first novel Thomas Hardy published. It appeared in 1871 without his name on the title page. Hardy was then a young architect who wrote in his spare hours, and he wanted to make a place for himself as a novelist. He chose the popular kind of fiction of his day, the novel of secrets, schemes and shocks, much like the work of Wilkie Collins.
The story follows Cytherea Graye, a young woman left with almost nothing after her father dies. She takes a post in a grand country house, where a rich and forceful mistress and a charming steward draw her into a web of old secrets and present danger. Her heart, meanwhile, is set on someone else. You get a tight plot, a sharp picture of how money and class limit a woman's choices, and an early look at the rural world that Hardy would make his own. Let us begin with the family that the story first shows us, and the loss that sets everything moving.
In questo riassunto
- 1A death leaves a family with nothingFree
- 2Love begins, but a promise stands in the way
- 3Miss Aldclyffe offers a post and a strange bond
- 4Manston arrives and a fire raises doubts
- 5Money, class and the cost of being a woman without means
- 6How Hardy builds a sensation plot with his own eye
Punto chiave 1 di 6
A death leaves a family with nothing
The story begins with the Graye family. Cytherea and her brother Owen are the grown children of an architect who dies after a fall from a scaffold. His death takes away their home, their income and their place in the world. Owen has trained as an architect himself, just as Hardy had, so the trade of drawing plans and watching buildings rise runs through the book from the start.
The loss matters because the Graye children belong to the genteel class but have no money to match. Hardy shows how thin that line is. They are educated and well mannered, yet one accident leaves them to find work where they can. For a young woman of the time, the choices are few and all of them involve depending on someone else.
Owen finds work with an architect and tries to hold the small household together. Cytherea is gentle, proud and quick to feel. She does not want to be a burden to him, and she looks for paid work of her own. This wish to be useful, and to be free of charity, is what first takes her away from safety.
Hardy also places the father's past in the background. There are old links and old feelings in the history of the family that the children do not yet understand. The author lets them stay half hidden, and a reader soon senses that what happened before Cytherea was grown will matter to what happens to her. That sense of buried history gives the first chapters their tension.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Rimedi disperati
What is Desperate Remedies about?
It follows Cytherea Graye, a young woman left poor after her father's death, who takes a post at a country house. There she meets a charming steward and gets caught up in secrets from the past.
Was Desperate Remedies Thomas Hardy's first novel?
It was the first novel he published, in 1871, and it came out without his name. He had written an earlier novel that was never printed. He wrote it while working as an architect.
Is Desperate Remedies a mystery novel?
Yes, in the manner of a Victorian sensation novel. It has hidden identities, doubtful deaths, secrets and suspense, in the style of Wilkie Collins, though it also shows Hardy's interest in rural life and class.
Is Desperate Remedies hard to read?
Not very. The plot is fast and the language is clear.
Is Desperate Remedies worth reading?
It is worth it if you enjoy suspense and want to see how Hardy began. It shows his eye for landscape and his concern with money and class.