The Mayor Of Casterbridge
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the fog-laden market town of Casterbridge, a single act of drunken recklessness sets in motion a decades-long tragedy of pride, ambition, and irreversible consequence — Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge chronicles the spectacular rise and devastating fall of Michael Henchard, a hay-trusser who sells his wife and daughter at a country fair, only to rebuild himself into a man of wealth and civic power, haunted always by the sins of his past. When the wife he abandoned returns with a mysterious stranger who threatens to usurp everything Henchard has built, the novel becomes a gripping portrait of a man at war with his own nature, as fate and character conspire to undo him with merciless precision. Hardy constructs Henchard as one of Victorian literature's most compelling tragic heroes — flawed, volcanic, and strangely sympathetic — illustrating how moral failure and stubborn pride render a man incapable of escaping his own destruction. First published in 1886, the novel stands as a masterwork of psychological realism, presenting the English rural landscape not merely as backdrop but as an active force that mirrors its characters' inner lives. Hardy's prose carries the weight of classical tragedy, drawing unmistakable parallels to figures like Lear and Oedipus, while remaining rooted in the social realities of 19th-century Wessex. Whether reading it for the first time or returning to its weathered pages, one question lingers long after the final chapter: can a man ever truly outrun who he was?
Author: Thomas Hardy
Format: Paperback
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the fog-laden market town of Casterbridge, a single act of drunken recklessness sets in motion a decades-long tragedy of pride, ambition, and irreversible consequence — Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge chronicles the spectacular rise and devastating fall of Michael Henchard, a hay-trusser who sells his wife and daughter at a country fair, only to rebuild himself into a man of wealth and civic power, haunted always by the sins of his past. When the wife he abandoned returns with a mysterious stranger who threatens to usurp everything Henchard has built, the novel becomes a gripping portrait of a man at war with his own nature, as fate and character conspire to undo him with merciless precision. Hardy constructs Henchard as one of Victorian literature's most compelling tragic heroes — flawed, volcanic, and strangely sympathetic — illustrating how moral failure and stubborn pride render a man incapable of escaping his own destruction. First published in 1886, the novel stands as a masterwork of psychological realism, presenting the English rural landscape not merely as backdrop but as an active force that mirrors its characters' inner lives. Hardy's prose carries the weight of classical tragedy, drawing unmistakable parallels to figures like Lear and Oedipus, while remaining rooted in the social realities of 19th-century Wessex. Whether reading it for the first time or returning to its weathered pages, one question lingers long after the final chapter: can a man ever truly outrun who he was?