The Mayor Of Casterbridge

Tragedy of man's ignorance of man in which an intoxicated young husband sells his wife and child at auction for five pou... (more)

Tragedy of man's ignorance of man in which an intoxicated young husband sells his wife and child at auction for five pounds. (less)

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The Mayor of Casterbridge is Michael Henchard who prior to becoming such a prominent man was a drunk who sold his wife a... (more)

The Mayor of Casterbridge is Michael Henchard who prior to becoming such a prominent man was a drunk who sold his wife and daughter to a sailor for five guineas at a county fair. Despite his remorse and despair and his forsaking all alcohol, he finds his past deed shapes his fate. Casterbridge is Hardy's fictionalised Dorchester providing a peaceful landscape in contrast to the inner turmoil of our tragic hero and the other three main characters who are closely interlinked. This tightly knit novel with its vivid characterisation and striking descriptions has often been described as the greatest in the English language and sees Hardy at his best. (less)

From its spectacular opening--the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a p... (more)

From its spectacular opening--the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passing sailor at a country fair--to the breathtaking series of discoveries at its conclusion, "The mayor of Casterbridge" claims a unique place among Thomas Hardy's finest and most powerful novels. Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power--only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim ... his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction." (less)