Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Mayor of Casterbridge is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, "The Life and Death of a Man of Character". It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, all set in a fictional rustic England. Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ...
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Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy - Queen Queen Elizabeth II - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification - by Athelstan 967 Area...
Cosette Dwyer is an amazing author. ...
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) — an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement — delineated characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. ...
The Mayor of Casterbridge is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, The Life and Death of a Man of Character. It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). ...
The main road through Dorchester Dorchester is a market town in south west Dorset, England, situated on the River Frome and A35 road 20 miles west of Poole and five miles north of Weymouth. ...
Dorset (pronounced DOR-sit or [dɔ.sət], and sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the south-west of England, on the English Channel coast. ...
The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. ...
Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. At a country fair near Casterbridge, Wessex, a young hay–trusser named Michael Henchard overindulges in rum–laced furmity and quarrels with his wife, Susan. Spurred by alcohol, he decides to auction off his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor, Mr. Newson, for five guineas. Once sober the next day, he is too late to recover his family, but swears not to touch liquor again for as many years as he has lived so far (twenty–one). Frumenty (sometimes furmity) was a popular food dish in European medieval cuisine. ...
Eighteen years later, Henchard, now a successful grain merchant, is the Mayor of Casterbridge (and known for his staunch sobriety). He is reunited with Susan who brings a grown Elizabeth-Jane with her. Both Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane's mother keep their past history from the daughter.
The return of his wife and daughter sets in motion a decline in his fortunes. Elizabeth-Jane soon falls in love with Donald Farfrae, whom Henchard has employed as his business manager, and whose fortunes are on the rise in direct contrast to his. Unknown to Henchard, Elizabeth-Jane is not his biological child (she died months after they parted), but that of Newson. He learns this secret, however, after Susan's death when he prematurely reads a letter which Susan, on her deathbed, marked only to be opened upon Elizabeth-Jane's matrimony. Henchard conceals the secret from Elizabeth-Jane, but grows cold and cruel towards her. Henchard's growing resentment of Donald Farfrae (as Farfrae's fortunes rise) leads to his standing in the way of a marriage between Donald and Elizabeth-Jane.
In the meantime, Henchard's former mistress, Lucetta, arrives from Jersey and attracts Donald, who soon marries her. Her relationship with Michael Henchard is revealed and both are disgraced. Lucetta - pregnant - dies of an epileptic seizure.
When Newson, Elizabeth-Jane's biological father, returns, Henchard is afraid of losing her companionship and tells Newson she is dead. Henchard is once again impoverished, and, as soon as his oath is up, resorts to drink. By the time Elizabeth-Jane, months later married to Donald Farfrae and reunited with Newson, goes looking for Henchard to forgive him, he has died and left a will requesting no funeral or fanfare:
"That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. "& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. "& that no flours be planted on my grave, "& that no man remember me. "To this I put my name.
Adaptations The Mayor of Casterbridge has been adapted twice as a mini-series: Both versions were broadcast in the U.S. by PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre. A&E Television Networks is a media company that owns several TV networks on cable and satellite. ...
Hinds in HBOs TV Series Rome Ciarán Hinds (born February 9, 1953) is a well-respected Belfast-born actor whose work spans theatre, radio, television, and film. ...
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...
Liber Amoris Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935—7 June 1994) was a controversial British dramatist who is best known for several widely acclaimed television dramas which mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. ...
The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion...
Alan Bates as butler in Gosford Park (2001) Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE, (February 17, 1934 – December 27, 2003) was a British actor. ...
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 354 member TV stations in the United States, with some member stations available by cable in Canada. ...
Masterpiece Theatre is a long-running anthology television series produced by WGBH which premiered on PBS on January 10, 1971. ...
A version of the story was also filmed in 2000 as The Claim, with the setting changed to a town (called Kingdom Come) in the American West of the 19th Century. The film was directed by Michael Winterbottom from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. The Claim is a 2000 British Western/romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom. ...
Winterbottom at the Toronto International Film Festival. ...
Frank Cottrell Boyce is a British screenwriter, novelist and occasional actor, best known for his collaborations with film director Michael Winterbottom. ...
In 1951 the novel was adapted as an opera by the British composer Peter Tranchell. The New Opera in Oslo, Norway The Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. ...
A composer is a person who writes music. ...
Peter Andrew Tranchell (14 July 1922–14 September 1993) was a British composer. ...
See also Psalm 109 is noted for containing some of the most frighteningly severe curses in the Bible, such as: Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. ...
Reference - Menefee, Samuel P., Wives for Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce (1981) ISBN 0-631-13301-1.
External links - A hypertextual, self-referential, complete edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge
Study guides
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