The Hand Of Ethelberta

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.