Hand Ethelberta Comedy Chapters, Signed (1 results)

Soft cover. First edition. Two volumes handsomely bound in quarter leather spines and leather tips and black textured cloth boards. Both volumes are near fine in matching Bayntum style bindings. With a touch of foxing in the margins of two pages. The Hand of Ethelberta has Twelve black and white Illustrations by George du Maurier and is comprised of the original Cornhill Magazine issues. It is signed with his full name: "Thomas Hardy" on the title page above the title of the first installment. A Laodicean is published in double-column format and not illustrated. Thomas Hardy signatures are quite scarce on any material prior to 1900. 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]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. (Wikipedia) Re: A Laodicean: Not one of Mr Hardy's novels contain more of the facts of his own life than A Laodicean, which was composed on what the author then believed to be his death bed; it was mainly dictated, which I think partly accounts for its difference in style from the other tales. Not only does Mr Hardy's scientific profession speak through the mouths of his characters, but old and beautiful buildings adorn his pages as they do the landscape he loves. (Wikipedia).