One of Hardy's most unusual novels, A Laodicean features a heroine torn between the dilapidated aristocratic romance of the past and the energetic technocracy of the modern world. Paula Power's two suitors--a patrician Army officer, and an architect, representative of the "new nobility of talent and enterprise"--comically illustrate the great social changes that were taking place as Hardy wrote the novel. The World's Classics edition of A Laodicean is unique in its use of the original text of 1881.