The Mayor of Casterbridge

He sold his wife at a country fair. He spent the rest of his life trying to forget. He could not.

Thomas Hardy’s novel of character is the story of a man who destroys everything he touches—including himself—and yet, somehow, commands our pity.

Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, gets drunk at a fair and sells his wife, Susan, and their baby daughter to a sailor for five guineas. The next morning, sober and horrified, he swears an oath: he will not touch alcohol for twenty-one years. He keeps the oath. He rises from laborer to mayor of the town of Casterbridge. He is respected, feared, and admired. Then his wife returns. His daughter returns. The sailor is dead. Henchard tries to do the right thing—but every right thing he does turns wrong. He alienates his loyal employee, Donald Farfrae, who becomes his rival. He loses his fortune. He loses his daughter. He dies alone in a hut on the heath, leaving a will that instructs no one to remember him.

This is Hardy at his most tragic and psychologically acute: a novel about the impossibility of escaping the past, the cruelty of fate, and the strange, terrible dignity of a man who knows he is his own worst enemy.

• Published in 1886, considered by many critics to be Hardy’s greatest novel

• Subtitled “The Life and Death of a Man of Character”

• A study of the “character is fate” theme that Hardy explored throughout his work

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the hardest person to forgive is the one in the mirror.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an English novelist and poet, one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era. Born in Dorset, the son of a stonemason, he trained as an architect before turning to writing. His novels are set in the semi-fictional region of “Wessex,” based on the rural countryside of southwestern England. The Mayor of Casterbridge was his eleventh novel, published in 1886. The novel is unique in Hardy’s canon for its tightly focused plot (the action takes place over eighteen years) and its exploration of a single character’s psychology. Hardy considered the novel “a story of a man of character,” emphasizing that Henchard’s tragedy is not caused by external events but by his own flaws. The novel has been adapted into films, television series, and radio dramas. Hardy’s other major works include Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). He died in 1928; his ashes are buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, but his heart is buried separately in Dorset, beside his first wife.