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Thomas Hardy

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The Mayor of Casterbridge

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Irritated and drunken, an itinerant farm-
worker sells his wife and child to a stranger.
Thus begins The Mayor of Casterbridge, set
in rural and small-town England in the mid-
1800s. In the original subtitle, Hardy called
this the story of "a man of character," and the
central character, Michael Henchard, is one of
English fiction's greatest creations. Henchard
is deeply developed as a realistic character,

but also larger-than-life in the manner of a Greek or Shakespearean
tragic hero — huge in his determination and huge in his failings. The
novel deals with the struggles between individual will, the hold of the
past, and the relentless control of circumstances in a changing
society.

LibriVox

Acoustical liberation of books
in the Public Domain

Total running time: 12:51:17
Read by Bruce Pirie

Cover design by Kathryn Delaney

Cover art by Paula Modersohn-Becker, Girl with Child in Front of Red Flowers, 1902