The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1876. It was written, in serial form, for The Cornhill Magazine , which was edited by Leslie Stephen, a friend and mentor of Hardy's. Unlike the majority of Hardy's fiction, the novel is a comedy, with both humour and a happy ending for the major characters and no suicides or tragic deaths. The late nineteenth century novelist George Gissing, who knew Hardy, considered it "surely old Hardy's poorest book". [1]
Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances, but through her work as a governess married well at the age of eighteen. Her husband died two weeks after the wedding and, now twenty-one, Ethelberta lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since the deaths of both her husband and father-in-law, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privilege by her benefactress, but restricted from seeing her poor family.
The events of the story concern Ethelberta's career as a poet and storyteller as she struggles to support her family and conceal that her father is a butler. Beautiful, clever, and rational, she easily attracts four very persistent suitors, Mr. Christopher Julian, a struggling musician, Mr. Neigh and Mr. Ladywell, both gentlemen and friends, and Lord Mountclere, a 65-year old aristocrat with a dubious past, but is reluctant to give her much-coveted hand. She finally elects for Lord Mountclere, after he discovers the secret of her low birth and family, and she comes to dominate him, running his estate and saving him from bankruptcy. Her unrequited suitor Christopher Julian realises he would never have been happy with her had she married him, and settles for her younger sister Picotee who had been in love with him for years.
Mr. Hardy retains his light touch. He is satirical without being ill-natured. His satire upon the "London correspondent" of a provincial paper is excellent. The little touches and glimpses of vanity by which he shows off his various characters are capital. [2]
It was adapted for BBC Radio 4 by Katherine Jakeways. The one-hour play was released just before International Women's Day 2021, as part of a series on Hardy's women. [3]
Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). As with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
East Lynne is an English sensation novel of 1861 by Ellen Wood, writing as Mrs Henry Wood. A Victorian best-seller, it is remembered chiefly for its elaborate and implausible plot, centring on infidelity and double identities. There have been numerous stage and film adaptations.
Love and Mr Lewisham is a 1900 novel set in the 1880s by H. G. Wells. It was among his first fictional writings outside the science fiction genre. Wells took considerable pains over the manuscript and said that "the writing was an altogether more serious undertaking than I have ever done before." He later included it in a 1933 anthology, Stories of Men and Women in Love.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891, then in book form in three volumes in 1891, and as a single volume in 1892. Although now considered a major novel of the 19th century, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.
Jude the Obscure is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. It is Hardy's last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man; he is a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion, morality and marriage.
The Small House at Allington is a novel by English novelist Anthony Trollope. It first appeared as a serial in the 1862 July to December edition of the Cornhill Magazine, and ended its run in the July to December edition of the following year. It was later published 1864 as a two volume novel. It is the fifth book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by Framley Parsonage and followed by The Last Chronicle of Barset. It enjoyed a revival in popularity in the early 1990s when the British prime minister, John Major, declared it as his favourite book.
George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is The Egoist (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was Diana of the Crossways (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.
George Robert Gissing was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. In the 1890s he was considered one of the three greatest novelists in England, and by the 1940s he had been recognised as a literary genius. Gissing's best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1891) and The Odd Women (1893). He retains a small but devoted group of followers.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth published novel and his first major literary success. It was published on 23 November 1874. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.
A Pair of Blue Eyes is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first serialised between September 1872 and July 1873, in Tinsley's Magazine, and published in book form in 1873. It was Hardy's third published novel, and the first not published anonymously. Hardy included it with his "romances and fantasies".
New Grub Street is a British novel by George Gissing published in 1891, which is set in the literary and journalistic circles of 1880s London. The story deals with the literary world that Gissing himself had experienced. Its title refers to the London street, Grub Street, which in the 18th century became synonymous with hack literature, although by Gissing's time, Grub Street itself no longer existed. Gissing revised and shortened the novel for a French edition of 1901.
Lucas Malet was the pseudonym of Mary St Leger Kingsley, a Victorian novelist. Of her novels, The Wages of Sin (1891) and The History of Sir Richard Calmady (1901) were especially popular. Malet scholar Talia Schaffer notes that she was "widely regarded as one of the premier writers of fiction in the English-speaking world" at the height of her career, but her reputation declined by the end of her life and today she is rarely read or studied. At the height of her popularity she was "compared favorably to Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, with sales rivaling Rudyard Kipling." Malet's fin de siecle novels offer "detailed, sensitive investigations of the psychology of masochism, perverse desires, unconventional gender roles, and the body."
The Egoist is a tragicomical novel by George Meredith published in 1879.
A Civil Contract is a Regency era novel by Georgette Heyer, first published in October 1961 by Heinemann in the UK and in January 1962 by G. P. Putnam's Sons in the US. Set between 1814–1815, the story centres on a bankrupted viscount who reluctantly enters a marriage of convenience with a wealthy merchant's daughter. In this case the time is supported by a rich assortment of period detail.
A Simple Story is a novel by English author and actress, Elizabeth Inchbald. Published in early 1791 as an early example of a "novel of passion", it was very successful and became widely read in England and abroad. It went into a second edition in March 1791. It is still in print today.
The Odd Women is an 1893 novel by the English novelist George Gissing. Its themes are the role of women in society, marriage, morals and the early feminist movement.
Mister Pellam is a 1993 Telugu-language comedy film produced by Gawara Partha Sarathi under the Sri Chamundi Chitra banner and directed by Bapu. It stars Rajendra Prasad, Aamani and music composed by M. M. Keeravani. This film is inspired by Mr. Mom and was recorded as a Hit at the box office. The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. The film won six Nandi Awards.
The Courtship of Morrice Buckler is an 1896 novel by the English author AEW Mason. It bears the subtitle A Romance : Being a Record of the Growth of an English Gentleman during the years 1685–1687, under strange and difficult circumstances / written some while afterwards in his own hand, and now edited by / A.E.W. Mason.
Leave it to Psmith, subtitled "A comedy of youth, love and misadventure", is a 1930 comedy play by Ian Hay and P. G. Wodehouse, based on the latter's 1923 novel of the same title. It premiered in London's West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 29 September 1930.
The Hand of Ethelberta public domain audiobook at LibriVox 