num_pages: 366
description: One of Hardy’s most powerful novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with a shocking and haunting scene: In a drunken rage, Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a visiting sailor at a local fair. When they return to Casterbridge some nineteen years later, Henchard—having gained power and success as the mayor—finds he cannot erase the past or the guilt that consumes him. The Mayor of Casterbridge is a rich, psychological novel about a man whose own flaws combine with fate to cause his ruin. This Modern Library Paperback Classic reprints the authoritative 1912 Wessex edition, as well as Hardy’s map of Wessex.
language: English
title: The Mayor of Casterbridge
titlecomplete: The Mayor of Casterbridge
characters: Lucetta Templeman, Susan Henchard, Michael Henchard, Richard Newson, Elizabeth-Jane Newson, Donald Farfrae
genres: Fiction, 19th Century, Classics, British Literature, Classic Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Victorian, Novels
ratings_count: 61204
places: United Kingdom, Wessex, England, Dorset, England
publisher: The Modern Library