# Is "Desperate Remedies" by Thomas Hardy a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy (Tinsley Brothers, 1871) is identified by: First edition, Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871, in three volumes, published anonymously — Hardy's name appears nowhere in the book, the title page reading only 'Desperate Remedies. Census claim CONFIRMED: Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871 is the true first — Hardy's first published book and first novel, and among the rarest of Victorian three-deckers, especially in original cloth.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871, in three volumes, published anonymously — Hardy's name appears nowhere in the book, the title page reading only 'Desperate Remedies
- In Three Volumes.' Published 25 March 1871 in an edition of 500 copies, produced at the author's own expense, Hardy having indemnified Tinsley against loss
- The original binding is red sandy-grained cloth, the covers with a three-rule border enclosing a scroll frame, the spines lettered and decorated in gilt
- Half-titles are present in all three volumes, and their presence in every volume is the collation point ABAA cataloguers insist upon; sets lacking them are made up or sophisticated
- Collation runs vi, 304; [vi], 291; vi, 274 pp., octavo, approximately 184 x 122 mm
- There is no edition or printing statement of any kind — this is a pre-number-line Victorian three-decker — so identification rests wholly on the Tinsley imprint, the 1871 date, the anonymity, the three-volume format, the complete half-titles, and, for the finest copies, the original cloth
- Publisher imprint reads Tinsley Brothers

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Thomas Hardy |
| Publisher | Tinsley Brothers |
| Year | 1871 |
| True first | British edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871, in three volumes, published anonymously — Hardy's name appears nowhere in the book, the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
First edition, Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871, in three volumes, published anonymously — Hardy's name appears nowhere in the book, the title page reading only 'Desperate Remedies. A Novel. In Three Volumes.' Published 25 March 1871 in an edition of 500 copies, produced at the author's own expense, Hardy having indemnified Tinsley against loss. The original binding is red sandy-grained cloth, the covers with a three-rule border enclosing a scroll frame, the spines lettered and decorated in gilt. Half-titles are present in all three volumes, and their presence in every volume is the collation point ABAA cataloguers insist upon; sets lacking them are made up or sophisticated. Collation runs vi, 304; [vi], 291; vi, 274 pp., octavo, approximately 184 x 122 mm. There is no edition or printing statement of any kind — this is a pre-number-line Victorian three-decker — so identification rests wholly on the Tinsley imprint, the 1871 date, the anonymity, the three-volume format, the complete half-titles, and, for the finest copies, the original cloth. Purdy pp. 3–5; Wolff 2971; Webb pp. 3–4; not in Sadleir.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim CONFIRMED: Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871 is the true first — Hardy's first published book and first novel, and among the rarest of Victorian three-deckers, especially in original cloth. No competing British or American issue of 1871 exists. The first American edition is Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1874, in the Leisure Hour Series, three years later; the census's Holt 1874 date is correct and no precedence question arises. Only the Tinsley three-volume set is the collected first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The title predates the book-club era entirely and no book-club issue exists. The reprint tell that matters most is structural: per Purdy the novel was never reprinted in its original three-volume form, so any three-decker other than Tinsley 1871 is not this book. The specific trap is that unsold sheets of the first edition were converted into a single-volume remainder issue — that remainder is the item most often mistaken for, or misdescribed as, the first. Later one-volume issues are common and are distinguished at once by the presence of Hardy's name on the title page and a later date.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Desperate Remedies* by Thomas Hardy a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/desperate-remedies
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.