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."
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born in Higher Bockhampton, Stinsford, England. He studied under an architect engaged in church restoration, then left Dorchester for London when he was twenty-two to pursue his profession. The idyllic rural life he left behind became inspiration for poetry, which publishers rejected, so he turned to the novel and found success. Several of his novels are considered masterpieces to this day. Discouraged by critics’ rejection of his later works, he returned to writing verse.
