“Extremely self-conscious in its craft, in many ways The Hand of Ethelberta is an exploration of fiction as illusion, which involves parody of the conventions it employs; romance, melodrama and farce, and a rejection of realism for absurdist and surrealistic effects. The ‘hand’ of Ethelberta is an obvious, ironic allusion to courtship, and the sub-title, ‘A Comedy in Chapters’, suggests the novel’s affinity with the conventions of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy of manners.”
Geoffrey Harvey
Thomas Hardy
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