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The Hand of Ethelberta
Thomas Hardy
Book Overview:
Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but became a governess and consequently, at the age of 18, married well. However, her husband died two weeks after the wedding. Her father-in-law, Lord Petherwin, died shortly afterwards. Ethelberta (now 21) lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since her marriage, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privileges by Lady Petherwin but restricted from seeing her own family. The story follows Ethelberta's career as a famous poetess and storyteller. Meanwhile, she struggles to support her family and conceal the fact that her father is a butler. Ethelberta easily attracts four very persistent suitors but is reluctant to give her much-coveted hand. The book is written in serial form.
Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but became a governess and consequently, at the age of 18, married well. However, her husband died two weeks after the wedding. Her father-in-law, Lord Petherwin, died shortly afterwards. Ethelberta (now 21) lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since her marriage, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privileges by Lady Petherwin but restricted from seeing her own family. The story follows Ethelberta's career as a famous poetess and storyteller. Meanwhile, she struggles to support her family and conceal the fact that her father is a butler. Ethelberta easily attracts four very persistent suitors but is reluctant to give her much-coveted hand. The book is written in serial form.
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He was greatly surprised, when the front of the house appeared in view on this spring afternoon, to see what a white and sightless aspect pervaded all the windows. He came close: the eyeball blankness was caused by all the shutters and blinds being shut tight from top to bottom. Possibly this had been the case for some time—he could not tell. In one of the windows was a card bearing the announceme. . . Read More
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Community Reviews
Well that made a change. No doom and gloom, no tragic shocks, admittedly a certain amount of heartache, but all quite bearable, and everything works out quite well in the end (although there is a last minute twist to the plot).
When I read the introduction I was quite surprised that this was to b...more
“It was one of those hostile days of the year when chatterbox ladies remain miserably in their homes to save the carriage and harness, when clerk’s wives hate living in lodgings, when vehicles and people appear in the street with duplicates of themselves underfoot, when bricklayers, slaters, and...more
There was a time in history that the difference between social classes can be seen as thick and as dense as a sky filled with white fluffy clouds that veneer the clarity of the spotless azure dome before our very eyes, deceitful in its immaculate texture of whiteness as it hides the incandescent...more
A wonderful reread.
Perfect autumn read!
Where do I start? I am astonished that this book is so relatively obscure, how it's not listed with Hardy's other famous novels, how there are hardly any commentaries on it. I think it is an amazing, refreshing, unusual book and I utterly loved it. I was up until three in the morning to finish it...more
My aim has been to read through the entire works of Thomas Hardy as he is one of my favored authors. I am very intrigued by him as a person and awed by the details of life from the mid 1800's that would be lost entirely to us were it not for there being recorded in his novels with such poetic det...more
I have a fatal weakness for the minor or forgotten work that may turn out to be the proverbial diamond in the dustcart (actually, I think I just made up that proverb). In that spirit, I have been making my way in the past few years through Thomas Hardy’s less visited back list: the novels he hims...more
“This somewhat frivolous narrative was produced as an interlude between stories of a more sober design...”
This is how Thomas Hardy opens his preface to this novel so no one can say that the reader was not forewarned and so should not be disappointed for not finding here another Jude the Obscure...more
Subtitled “a comedy in chapters”, Hardy’s fifth novel production is not a tremendous piece of sustained prose writing, nor a comedy, unless your sense of humour is Sahara-in-summer-dry. As the unforgiving introduction to the Macmillian edition states, Hardy here writes in his “Harrison Ainsworth...more