A Laodicean is one of Hardy's most unusual novels, a contemporary romance in which the heroine is torn between her infatuation with an ancient, dilapidated castle purchased by her father, two very different suitors, and a desire to be part of the modern world and its technological achievements. No elegy for a lost past, the story of Paula's dilemma was meant to be a comic investigation of the `incongruities that were daily shaping themselves in the world under the great modern fluctuations of classes and creeds'. This is the only edition to present the text of the novel's first edition rather than that of 1912, enabling a modern reader to read `A Story of To-day' as Hardy originally wrote it. This book is intended for students of Hardy, Victorian/20th century literature, general.