The Hand of Ethelberta - A Comedy in Chapters

By Thomas Hardy

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781447496038

Reviews for The Hand of Ethelberta - A Comedy in Chapters

[nordie_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read as part of the Hardy group.

I'm going to have to call this book quits without finishing. Got most of the way through, got distracted by about 8 other books, and have had difficulty getting back into it. Another time, and I might complete it.

It was...ok. The first (and I think only) Hardy book to be set primarily "in town" (London) rather than in Wessex. Ethelbertha is the toast of the town, having produced a book of poems and then reciting her own stories in the fashionable salons around town. Most people dont realise she is the daughter of a butler, and the servants in her house are her mother and siblings.

She finds herself in the position of 3 men wanting to marry her - with her already having given up the apparent love of her life when she got married the first time.

"A comedy in chapters" is a little difficult to understand - perhaps from this distance it's not possible to see the humour. There is a little farce in having three men in Ethelbertha's house at the same time, all wanting her hand in marriage.

Unfortunately I got little further than this point. Whenever I attempt to read more, I find it difficult to get through a few pages at a time, so now to give up.

[jon1lambert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Hand of Ethelberta is very different from other novels I have read by Thomas Hardy. It is quite long for a start, and it seems to me to resemble a Charles Dickens novel, much of it set in London. It concerns Ethelberta who is the dominant figure of the family, a very strong and determined woman who nevertheless gets tangled up in her love life and on one occasion says 'I wish I were a man'. Some of the book and the antics of the family, supporting or not supporting Ethelberta, reminded me of the Nickelbys. The extended family is removed from Wessex to London in order to keep them together and to be able to support Ethelberta as the breadwinner. She makes her living first by poetry and then recitations and public storytelling. There is a lot of banter among the family members and lots of humour associated with Ethelberta’s various suitors. Characters such as Neigh and Ladywell are wooden but the main suitor, Christopher Julian, is not. There are the usual unexpected meetings, misunderstandings and cases of mistaken identity. Messages are sent and intercepted and just as the end approaches there is a trick in the tail. However, the situation is retrieved and a sequel chapter at the end ensures that most characters are more or less happy. In many respects Ethelberta is like Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the madding crowd. Sometimes she acts on impulse only to regret the consequences. Hardy provides hundreds of wonderful turns of phrase, for instance, 'she'd rather hear thunder than her singing.' Picotee, one of Ethelberta's sisters, is endearing and would certainly win a supporting character award.

[lyzzybee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(Kindle)A lesser-known work, published between “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “The Return of the Native” (and read late because I didn’t fancy it but then couldn’t bear to miss one of the books as I’ve joined Ali’s scheme to read them all in order!). Enjoyable and with a plot that can be engaging and fast-paced. Widowed young, Ethelberta must use all her resources to support her ailing mother and nine siblings, while her father supports himself in a job as a butler. In some ways, this is a very feminist book, highlighting with some sympathy the plight of the unsupported female who must maintain her delicate reputation. In Ethelberta’s case, this involves distancing herself from her family in appearance, while remaining close to them in fact, and negotiating her way around a quartet of suitors, making the right choice for economics and her family: Somebody in the family must take a practical view of affairs, or we should all go to the dogs.But Hardy also seems bitter about women’s methods of negotiating these minefields, which is interesting, and I wonder where this comes from. He is very perceptive about male-female relations, for example: New love is brightest, and long love is greatest; but revived love is the tenderest thing known upon earth. ‘We don’t need to know a man well in order to love him. That’s only necessary when we want to leave off.’ Not the lovers who part in passion, but the lovers who part in friendship, are those who most frequently part forever.And also on life in general: I loved this little point: ‘The deuce, the deuce!’ he continued, walking about the room as if passionately stamping, but not quite doing it because another man had rooms below.There are also some interesting points made about the cult of celebrity which seem quite modern. The novel gets quite gothic towards the end, with chases, near-shipwrecks and horrible surprises, but holds the attention. Surely, though, the chilling quotation: But ten of us are so many to cope with. If God Almighty had only killed off three-quarters of us when we were little, a body might have done something for the rest.surely presages the horrors of Jude? Anyway, I am glad I read this, for completeness’ sake, and it was an interesting read on its own merits.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite enjoyed this fifth book written by Thomas Hardy. Although, If his name had not been on the title page I'm not sure I would have figured it was his. It seemed, at times, too whimsical for Hardy. There's a scene that reminded me so much of an English comedy (think Fawlty Towers) that I laughed out loud. On the other hand, there are some wonderful descriptions of scenes that, I think, could only have been written by Hardy.Berta Chickerel, daughter of a butler, manages to rise above her station by marriage but her young husband soon dies. His mother, Lady Petherwin, treats Ethelberta to the best in life but she has to hide her humble origins. After Lady Petherwin dies Ethelberta continues to appear as a lady of quality and soon she is sought after by a number of suitors. Lord Mountclere is certainly the most noble of those but also the oldest. And it seems like he has ulterior motives for trying to win Ethelberta's hand. When Ethelberta finally gives in to his entreaties he sets the date of marriage in just a few days. Then ensues a cross-country chase by Ethelberta's father, brother and the Lord's brother in an effort to stop the marriage that is worthy of a silent film melodrama. Will they be in time to stop the marriage? Will Ethelberta stay married to Lord Mountclere? What is Lord Mountclere's shady past? The answers are in the last few chapters of the book.

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“The Hand of Ethelberta” may be considered the runt of Hardy’s litter, but that doesn’t mean it should be avoided.This is light fiction with some good comedy blended in. I like moments such as when Picotee – Ethelberta’s sister, and my favourite character – criticises a man for laughing like this: “Hee, hee, hee!”So while this isn’t a Hardy masterpiece, it does show this great author’s versatility as a writer.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable read and loved the opportunistic character of Ethelberta.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The hand of Ethelberta is a fairly early Hardy novel, which appeared two years after Far from the madding crowd. He classed it as one of his "novels of ingenuity" and as a "comedy in chapters", both of which give a strong hint that we're not in the world of grim, arbitrary rural tragedy that readers of Tess or Jude might expect from a Hardy novel. But neither are we in the bucolic world of Under the greenwood tree - this is a social comedy of ambition and class-differences, very much part of the modern world of 1870s Britain (almost in HG Wells country), even if the plot sometimes seems to owe more than a little to Moll Flanders... Ethelberta is a clever, enterprising, young woman from a working-class background who has risen in the world by a series of accidents that would easily fill a three-volume novel in themselves, but which Hardy summarizes in a couple of paragraphs on the opening page. Unfortunately, she has acquired social standing without very much money to back it up, so she has to use all her ingenuity to earn enough to support her many siblings. She finds a niche for herself as a professional story-teller, but the novelty value of this is clearly going to be short-lived, so it's a case of maximising the opportunities her various suitors present. If possible, without hurting that very nice young musician who will never have enough money to marry her. The plot frequently requires the complex mechanisms of French farce (not Hardy's greatest skill as a novelist) and at a couple of points drifts into a parody of bad-baronet-style melodrama so good that it's hard to realise that it is meant to be funny. Which probably explains why this isn't one of Hardy's better-known books. But what does make it interesting is his careful analysis of the pain and misunderstanding that can be caused by the rigidity of a framework for social relations based on the assumption that a person's "class" is immanent and invariable, whilst in reality, late-Victorian society provided more opportunities than ever before for people to move up and down the social ladder. The key scene in the book is a dinner-party where the Doncastles have invited Ethelberta to meet Lord Mountclere, without being aware that Ethelberta is actually the daughter of their tactful and efficient butler. Hardy resists the temptation to produce a big revelation here, but allows us to appreciate the pain that father and daughter must both be feeling as she sits there whilst he pours her wine and neither of them can afford to give any acknowledgement of their relationship. And, of course, to make his middle-class readers pause for a moment and wonder if it's possible that some of their own servants might be human beings with private joys and sorrows...Reading this directly after Trollope made me realise what a wonderfully three-dimensional view of society Hardy has. He's a writer who can't describe the presence of a jug of milk on a table without wondering about all the people who were involved in getting it there, and in many cases telling us something about them as individuals. The landscape is always important in Hardy as well, of course - in this case much of the action takes place around Swanage, Corfe Castle and Bournemouth, and it always feels as though you'd have little difficulty following the journeys by land and sea he describes, if you could only find an 1870s map.

[startingover_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It has to be said that this is not one of Hardy's best novels. But it's not awful, either, and is definitely worth reading if you have an interest in Hardy's work. First published in 1876, it appeared two years after 'Far From the Madding Crowd' and two years before 'The Return of the Native'.The daughter of a butler, Ethelberta rises in society thanks to an impetuous early marriage to the son of Sir Ralph Petherwin. As a widow she is allowed to remain living with her husband's mother, Lady Petherwin, but the death of Lady Petherwin leaves Ethelberta needing to make a good marriage in order to keep both herself and her many siblings who live with her under the guise of her servants.Although Ethelberta is desperate to keep secret her humble origins, this is more a question of self-preservation than snobbishness. She goes beyond the call of duty in her efforts to take care of her family, and feels awkward to have to attend a dinner at which her father acts as butler - not because she's ashamed of him, but because she's upset that she can't acknowledge him as her father without giving the game away.Ethelberta has four suitors, one of whom she loves. He, naturally, is poor. There is a rather farcical situation when three of her suitors call for her and must be seen individually. She tells all three that she'll give them her answer in not less than a month's time - by which time, she knows, her humble origins will be made public by lady's maid Mrs Menlove.I've read reviews criticising the book's "fairytale ending", but personally I didn't think it was particularly 'happy ever after'. Ethelberta marries well, but not to Christopher, the man she loves. Christopher marries Ethelberta's sister, who is also in love with him, but despite his avowal of love my feeling is that he remains in love with Ethelberta.Although it's not a great novel, and certainly stands no comparison with Hardy's finest novels, Ethelberta is a pleasing heroine and the story lightweight but enjoyable. [August 2006]