The following story, the first published by the author, was written
nineteen years ago, at a time when he was feeling his way to a
method. The principles observed in its composition are, no doubt, too
exclusively those in which mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral
obliquity are depended on for exciting interest; but some of the scenes,
and at least one of the characters, have been deemed not unworthy of a
little longer preservation; and as they could hardly be reproduced in a
fragmentary form the novel is reissued complete--the more readily that
it has for some considerable time been reprinted and widely circulated
in America. January 1889.
To the foregoing note I have only to add that, in the present edition of
‘Desperate Remedies,’ some Wessex towns and other places that are common
to the scenes of several of these stories have been called for the
first time by the names under which they appear elsewhere, for the
satisfaction of any reader who may care for consistency in such matters.
This is the only material change; for, as it happened that certain
characteristics which provoked most discussion in my latest story were
present in this my first--published in 1871, when there was no French
name for them it has seemed best to let them stand unaltered.
T.H. February 1896.