Everyman Classics: The Hand Of Ethelberta

Ethelberta Petherwin is a young widow and the star of every salon. Her passionate poetry is the talk of fashionable society. Beautiful, witty and, surely, wealthy and well-connected, a faint air of mystery only increases her allure.

But if the hand of Ethelberta is London's most sought-after prize it is because no one has yet noticed her family. For she is one of the ten children of a butler. She is determined to win a rich husband in order to provide for her family. There is, for instance, Lord Mountclere. But will a lord welcome a butler as his father-in-law?

This is the most comprehensive edition available, with introduction, notes, selected criticism, text summary and chronology of Hardy's life and times.