Mayor of Casterbridge

With an essay by Robert Langbaum.

''Here - I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who''ll have her?''

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behi...