Hand of Ethelberta : A Comedy in Chapters

by Hardy, Thomas; Dolin, Tim

• ISBN13: 9780140435023
• ISBN10: 0140435026
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-01-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Adventuress and opportunist, Ethelberta reinvents herself to disguise her humble origins, launching a brilliant career as a society poet in London with her family acting incognito as her servants. Turning the male-dominated literary world to her advantage, she happily exploits the attentions of four very different suitors. Will she bestow her hand upon the richest of them, or on the man she loves? Ethelberta Petherwin, alias Berta Chickerel, moves with easy grace between her multiple identities, cleverly managing a tissue of lies to aid her meteoric rise. In The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), Hardy drew on conventions of popular romances, illustrated weeklies, plays, fashion plates and even his wife's diary in this comic story of a woman in control of her destiny.

Author Biography

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840. In his writing, he immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He died on January 11, 1928, and was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii	(1)
General Editor's Preface	viii	(3)
Chronology: Hardy's Life and Works	xi	(4)
Map: The Wessex of the Novels	xv	(1)
Bibliographical Note	xvi	(1)
Key to Place Names	xvii	(2)
Introduction	xix	(23)
Further Reading	xlii	(2)
A Note on the Text	xliv
THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA	1	(406)
Preface	3	(2)
List of Chapter Titles	5	(2)
List of Illustrations	7	(2)
The Hand of Ethelberta	9	(398)
Appendix I: A History of the Text	407	(10)
Appendix II: A Note on the Illustrations	417	(8)
Notes	425	(34)
Glossary	459