Reading Thomas Hardy’s “Desperate Remedies” (1871) after reading Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851)

After I finished Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851) on 7 December 2023, I turned to Thomas Hardy's novels for my next long-term reading project. At 144,580 words, Hardy's first novel, "Desperate Remedies" (1871), is only seventy percent as long as "Moby Dick" (at 209,117 words), but it is much more plot-driven, so it only took me two weeks to read it (instead of fifteen for Melville). "Desperate Remedies" is also much more of a page-turner than "Moby Dick", though that might also have to do with my previous knowledge of each book's plot: I knew many of the details of the Melville already and nothing about Hardy's much less famous novel. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 1 January 2024)