Thomas Hardy, Keith Wilson (Edited by)

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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Summary

'Hardy's is a world that can never disappear' Margaret Drabble

Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful study of the heroic but deeply flawed Michael Henchard is an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town. Its events are set in motion when, in a fit of drunken anger, Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success lurks the shameful secret of his past.

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wilson

About the author

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840 and became an apprentice architect at the age of sixteen. He spent his twenties in London, where he wrote his first poems. In 1867 Hardy returned to his native Dorset, whose rugged landscape was a great source of inspiration for his writing. Between 1871 and 1897 he wrote fourteen novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. This final work was received savagely; thereafter Hardy turned away from novels and spent the last thirty year of his life focusing on poetry. He died in 1928.

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