''The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character'' is an 1886 novel by the English author
Thomas Hardy. One of
Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for
Dorchester in
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
where the author spent his youth. It was first published as a weekly serialisation from January 1886.
The novel is considered to be one of Hardy's masterpieces, although it has been criticised for incorporating too many incidents, a consequence of the author trying to include something in every weekly published instalment.
Plot
![TheMayorofCasterbridge1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/TheMayorofCasterbridge1.png)
At a country fair near Casterbridge in
Wessex
la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons
, common_name = Wessex
, image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg
, map_caption = S ...
, Michael Henchard, a 21-year-old hay-trusser, argues with his wife Susan. Drunk on rum-laced
furmity
Frumenty (sometimes ''frumentee'', ''furmity'', ''fromity'', or ''fermenty'') was a popular dish in Western European medieval cuisine. It is a porridge, a thick boiled grain dish—hence its name, which derives from the Latin Language, Latin word ...
he
auctions
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...
her off, along with their baby daughter Elizabeth-Jane, to Richard Newson, a passing sailor, for five
guineas
The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
. Sober and remorseful the next day, he is too late to locate his family. He vows not to touch liquor again for 21 years.
Believing the auction to be legally binding, Susan lives as Newson's wife for 18 years. After Newson is lost at sea Susan, lacking any means of support, decides to seek out Henchard again, taking her daughter with her. Susan has told Elizabeth-Jane little about Henchard, and the young woman knows only that he is a relation by marriage. Susan discovers that Henchard has become a very successful hay and
grain merchant
The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...
and Mayor of Casterbridge, known for his staunch sobriety. He has avoided explaining how he lost his wife, allowing people to assume he is a widower.
When the couple are reunited, Henchard proposes remarrying Susan after a sham courtship, this in his view being the simplest and most discreet way to remedy matters and to prevent Elizabeth-Jane learning of their disgrace. To do this, however, he is forced to break off an engagement with a woman named Lucetta Templeman, who had nursed him when he was ill.
Donald Farfrae, a young and energetic Scotsman passing through Casterbridge, helps Henchard by showing him how to salvage substandard grain he has bought. Henchard takes a liking to the man, persuades him not to emigrate, and hires him as his corn
factor
Factor, a Latin word meaning "who/which acts", may refer to:
Commerce
* Factor (agent), a person who acts for, notably a mercantile and colonial agent
* Factor (Scotland), a person or firm managing a Scottish estate
* Factors of production, suc ...
, rudely turning away a man named Jopp to whom he had already offered the job. Farfrae is extremely successful in the role, and increasingly outshines his employer. When he catches the eye of Elizabeth-Jane, Henchard dismisses him and Farfrae sets himself up as an independent merchant. Farfrae conducts himself with scrupulous honesty, but Henchard is so determined to ruin his rival that he makes risky business decisions that prove disastrous.
Susan falls ill and dies shortly after the couple's remarriage, leaving Henchard a letter to be opened on the day of Elizabeth-Jane's wedding. Henchard reads the letter, which is not properly sealed, and learns that Elizabeth-Jane is not in fact his daughter, but Newson's – his Elizabeth-Jane having died as an infant. Henchard's new knowledge causes him to behave coldly towards the second Elizabeth-Jane.
Elizabeth-Jane accepts a position as companion to Lucetta, a newcomer, unaware that she had had a relationship with Henchard which resulted in her social ruin. Now wealthy after receiving an inheritance from her aunt, and learning that Henchard's wife had died, Lucetta has come to Casterbridge to marry him. However, on meeting Farfrae, she becomes attracted to him, and he to her.
Henchard's financial difficulties persuade him that he should marry Lucetta quickly. But she is in love with Farfrae, and the couple run away one weekend to get married, not telling Henchard until after the fact. Henchard's credit collapses and he goes bankrupt. Farfrae buys Henchard's old business and tries to help Henchard by employing him as a
journeyman
A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that fie ...
.
Lucetta asks Henchard to return her old love letters, and Henchard asks Jopp to take them to her. Jopp, who still bears a grudge for having been cheated out of the position of factor, opens the letters and reads them out loud at an inn. Some of the townspeople publicly shame Henchard and Lucetta, creating effigies of them in a
skimmington ride
Charivari (, , , alternatively spelled shivaree or chivaree and also called a skimmington) was a European and North American folk custom in which a mock parade was staged through a community accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. Since the cro ...
. Lucetta is so devastated by the spectacle that she collapses, has a miscarriage, and dies.
The next day, Newson – who it transpires was not lost at sea – arrives at Henchard's door asking about his daughter. Henchard, who has come to value her kindness to him, is afraid of losing her companionship and tells Newson she is dead. Newson leaves in sorrow. After 21 years, Henchard's vow of abstinence expires, and he starts drinking again.
Eventually discovering that he has been lied to, Newson returns, and Henchard disappears rather than endure a confrontation. On the day of Elizabeth-Jane's wedding to Farfrae, Henchard comes back, timidly seeking a reconciliation. She rebuffs him, and he departs for good. Later, regretting her coldness, she and Farfrae set out to find him. They arrive too late, and learn that he has died alone. They also find his last written statement: his dying wish is to be forgotten.
Principal characters
* Michael Henchard: hay trusser who becomes Mayor of Casterbridge
* Susan Henchard (Newson): wife of Henchard, sold to Newson
* Richard Newson: sailor; purchases Susan and lives with her for many years as her de facto husband
* Elizabeth-Jane: daughter of Susan by Henchard; dies as an infant
* Elizabeth-Jane: daughter of Susan by Newson; marries Farfrae
* Donald Farfrae: becomes Mayor of Casterbridge after Henchard; Scotsman
* Lucetta Templeman (Le Sueur): native of Jersey who has an affair with Henchard; marries Farfrae
* Joshua Jopp: sometime manager with a grudge against Henchard.
Setting and date
The book is one of
Hardy's Wessex novels, and is set largely in the fictional town of Casterbridge, based on
Dorchester in
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
. The author intended Casterbridge to be an imaginative presentation of certain aspects of the town as he remembered it in the "dream" of his childhood.
Although the opening sentence of the novel states that the events described took place "before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span" the date of Hardy's own childhood places it rather later – in the mid-to-late 1840s.
First publication and early reception
Hardy started work on ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'' in the spring of 1884, after a three-year pause. He completed it in a little over a year, and it was first issued in weekly parts in January 1886, followed by full publication in May 1886. A reader for the publisher,
Smith, Elder & Co. was not impressed and complained that the lack of
gentry
Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past.
Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies
''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
among the characters made it uninteresting. It was issued with a small print run of only 750 copies.
Hardy himself felt that in his efforts to get an incident into almost every weekly instalment he had added events to the narrative somewhat too freely, resulting in over-elaboration. However, he was deeply affected, telling a friend that the novel was the only tragedy that made him weep while writing it.
Later appreciation
In her 2006 biography of Thomas Hardy, the author
Claire Tomalin called the book a "masterpiece," a deeply imagined dramatic and poetic work, with a narrative on a grand scale and paced with extraordinary moments. She praised it as being built on the territory in which Hardy worked best, in which the rural landscape is drawn with a naturalist's eye and in which country people play out their lives between custom and education, work and ideas, and love of place and experience of change. Hardy's portrait of Henchard – "depressive, black-tempered, self-destructive, and also lovable as a child is lovable" – she considered one of his strongest achievements. She did concur with Hardy, however, in noting that he tried to pack in too many incidents.
Adaptations
Film and TV
*''
The Mayor of Casterbridge
''The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character'' is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in ...
'', a silent film of 1921
* ''
Mayor Nair
''Mayor Nair'' is a 1966 Indian Malayalam-language film, directed by S. R. Puttanna and produced by P. A. Thangal. The film stars Adoor Bhasi, Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair, Balu and Ramesh. It is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel ''The ...
'', a 1966 Indian
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
film
*
''Daag'', a 1973
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
romantic drama film
* ''
Vichitra Jeevitham
''Vichitra Jeevitham'' () is a 1978 Indian Telugu-language drama film directed by V. Madhusudhana Rao. The film stars Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Vanisri and Jayasudha, with music composed by Chakravarthy. It is a remake of the Hindi film '' Da ...
'', a 1978 remake of
''Daag''
*
''The Mayor of Casterbridge'', a 1978 seven-part serial for BBC TV
*
''The Claim'', a 2000 film set in the American West with events loosely based on the novel
*
''The Mayor of Casterbridge'', a 2003 British TV film
Radio
* ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'', a 1994 four-part dramatisation by Sally Hedges with
David Calder as Michael Henchard,
Jason Flemyng
Jason Iain Flemyng''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for roles in British films such as ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998) ...
as Donald Farfrae, Janet Dale as Susan, Andrea Wray as Elizabeth-Jane, Sandra Berkin as Lucetta,
Mary Wimbush
Mary Wimbush (19 March 1924 – 31 October 2005) was an English actress whose career spanned 60 years. Active across film, television, theatre and radio, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1969 film ''Oh! ...
as the Furmity-seller and
John Nettles
John Vivian Drummond Nettles, OBE, (born 11 October 1943) is an English actor and author. He is best known for his starring roles as detectives in the crime drama television series '' Bergerac'' (1981–1991) in the title role, and ''Midsomer M ...
as Newson.
* ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'', a 2008 three-part radio play by
Helen Edmundson for
BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial slot.
Opera
* ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'', a 1951 opera by the young British composer
Peter Tranchell, with a libretto by Tranchell and Peter Bentley. It received its first performance at that year's Cambridge Festival.
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
''Spark Notes'' study guide''GradeSaver'' study guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayor of Casterbridge, The
1886 British novels
Novels by Thomas Hardy
Culture in Dorchester, Dorset
English novels
Novels set in Dorset
British novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels adapted into operas
Novels adapted into radio programs
Smith, Elder & Co books