The Mayor of Casterbridge
- Longman Group UK Ltd 1988
- 378
At a country fair near Casterbridge, Wessex, a young hay-trusser named Michael Henchard gets drunk on rum-laced furmity and argues with his wife, Susan. He decides to auction off his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor, Mr. Newson, for five guineas. Sober the next day, he is too late to recover his family. When he realises that his wife and daughter are gone, he swears not to touch liquor again for as many years as he has lived so far (21).Eighteen years later, Henchard is now a successful grain merchant and Mayor of Casterbridge, known for his staunch sobriety. Henchard has avoided explaining the circumstances of the "loss" of his wife, allowing people to assume he is a widower...Elizabeth resurfaces again after Eighteen years....what happens next?...