The Mayor of Casterbridge By Thomas Hardy Novel Thomas Hardy 9781543127379 Books
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The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), subtitled "The Life and Death of a Man of Character", is a novel by British author Thomas Hardy. 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 rural England. Hardy began writing the book in 1884 and wrote the last page on 17 April 1885. Within the book, he writes that the events took place "before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span". Literary critic Dale Kramer sees it as being set somewhat later—in the late 1840s, corresponding to Hardy's youth in Dorchester. PLOTAt 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. On a visit to Jersey on business, Henchard falls in love with Lucette Le Sueur, who nurses him back to health after an illness. Although Henchard never tells Lucetta exactly how he "lost" his wife, he does tell her he has a wife who is probably dead, but who may return. Besotted, Lucetta develops a relationship with him despite the risk. The book implies that they have a sexual relationship,[2] and Lucetta's reputation is ruined. Henchard returns to Casterbridge, leaving Lucetta to face the social consequences of their fling. To rejoin polite society Lucetta would have to marry him, although Henchard is already technically married. Yet just as Henchard is about to send for Lucetta, Susan unexpectedly appears in Casterbridge with her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. Newson appears to have been lost at sea, and without means to earn an income Susan is looking to Henchard again. Susan believed for a long time that her "marriage" to Newson was perfectly legitimate. Only recently, just before Newson's disappearance, had Susan begun to question whether or not she was still legally married to Henchard. Just as Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive in town, a Scotsman, Donald Farfrae, is passing through on his way to America. He has experience as a grain and corn merchant, and is on the cutting edge of agricultural science. He befriends Henchard and helps him out of a bad financial situation by giving him some timely advice. Henchard persuades him to stay and offers him a job as his corn factor, rudely dismissing a man named Jopp to whom he had already offered the job. Hiring Farfrae is a stroke of business genius for Henchard, who, although hardworking, is not well-educated..... Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth.He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
The Mayor of Casterbridge By Thomas Hardy Novel Thomas Hardy 9781543127379 Books
This book is a classic and should be read by anyone who has a love for words.....you will be pressing so many words to get definitions on your kindle that it could almost be distracting....but......but the vocabulary is so delicious that you must know the meaning of the words.....and so your kindle helps you......what a plus this is!!!The actual story revolves around relationships in England during a time of very specified courting behavior that we would find amusing today...but stick with it. It is not an easy beginning read, nor is it possible to get the flow of the book after a few chapters. Remember this was a time when vocabulary embellished every sentence, description, thought, movement. A mere kiss meant a bold statement of presumed matrimony....so different from today...right?
The characters are all farmers and you learn what a difficult and rewarding life this could be for some one under their circumstances. There are the usual twists and turns in the book that keep you busy and reluctant to stop reading...so enjoy....enjoy...and be amazed how we lost so many interesting words and descriptions to mediocre literature.
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Tags : The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886). By: Thomas Hardy: Novel [Thomas Hardy] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), subtitled The Life and Death of a Man of Character, is a novel by British author Thomas Hardy. 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,Thomas Hardy,The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886). By: Thomas Hardy: Novel,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1543127371,General,FICTION General,Fiction
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The Mayor of Casterbridge By Thomas Hardy Novel Thomas Hardy 9781543127379 Books Reviews
This is not a literary review of the novel, but of the physical copy we received. My husband has a group of movie-going buddies who decided to read the novel and then watch both versions of the movie adaptations. Long wait for library copies, no copies in the used book stores in town; since he's a slow reader, we decided to go with the copy that would arrive the fastest and went to .
It's obviously a print-on-demand (printed June 18, arrived at our door June 20). I have no problem with the concept, in fact it seems like a dream come true to a book lover. But whywhywhy is it such a terrible job? A solid block of print from front to back; chapter headings and "conclusion" are all on the same lines with the text. Tiny margins, and the binding so tight it will obviously have to be broken in order to read the pages in the center of the book. I don't know how many mistakes, such as spelling and missed words, there are -- I'll come back here if there are a lot of them. In fact, I'll ask for our money back. But hopefully it will be adequate for Mr. K's needs. No matter what, it goes directly into the recycling bin when he's done. If he loves it we'll buy another copy.
Print-on-demand bah, humbug.
Bathsheba Everdene is a self-willed and independent young woman who inherits her uncle's farm. An assertive and confident nature in a woman is a novelty in the rural parish of Weatherbury and Bathsheba soon attracts three very different admirers.
The only other book I've read by Thomas Hardy is Tess of the D'Urbervilles which I enjoyed because Tess was a well-rounded female character which I feel is a rare find in most books. Bathsheba too, is a well developed character and the reader gets to know her intimately as she comes of age in this sometimes funny and other times tragic love story.
Hardy is prone to waffling especially when describing architecture or milieus so the reader must be patient. The first half of the book is quite slow and I was tempted to give up on the book but the second half more than makes up for it.
The second half is tense and builds up to an unexpected violent scene and while the ending is predictable it is also satisfying. I recommend this book to those who enjoyed Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
It's a soap opera and was written as a serial for a newspaper. It was not written all at once before publication and it shows. A young man gets drunk and sells his wife and baby to a sailor. He goes to Casterbridge and becomes a businessman and then the mayor for a year. In the meantime he meets another woman and has an affair with her but does not marry her because he does not know what happened to his wife. Then about 18 years later, the wife and child show up, the sailor having died a sea. He decides that he should re-marry his wife so no one would know of the scandal. He meets a young man from Scotland who is perfect in every way and hires him as his business manager at his corn business. Then his wife dies. The daughter does not know what happened when she was a baby and think of Henchard (that's his name) as her stepfather. However when his wife died, he told her the truth, only to discover that his own child had died and the daughter he thought was his was actually the daughter of the dead sailor. Then he got mad at Donald, the young Scot, and fired him. Then his old girlfriend showed up and wanted to marry him. She had inherited money, lots of it, from an aunt and was now rich. He put her off a day too long and she saw Donald and it was love at first sight. So Donald and Lucetta, Henchard's old girlfriend got married, even though the daughter, Elizabeth, had hoped to marry him. Then all the scandal came to light about the sale of the wife and about the affair and Lucetta was so upset that she died. Meanwhile the sailor wasn't dead at all and he came back and looked for his daughter Elizabeth. And on, and on, and on, and on. I'm sure Hardy would be surprised to find out that people are still reading his soap opera. It would make a good serialized tv soap opera, and I would like to see the movie, but I wouldn't call it classic literature -- more like pulp fiction. A lot of it is boring.
This book is a classic and should be read by anyone who has a love for words.....you will be pressing so many words to get definitions on your kindle that it could almost be distracting....but......but the vocabulary is so delicious that you must know the meaning of the words.....and so your kindle helps you......what a plus this is!!!
The actual story revolves around relationships in England during a time of very specified courting behavior that we would find amusing today...but stick with it. It is not an easy beginning read, nor is it possible to get the flow of the book after a few chapters. Remember this was a time when vocabulary embellished every sentence, description, thought, movement. A mere kiss meant a bold statement of presumed matrimony....so different from today...right?
The characters are all farmers and you learn what a difficult and rewarding life this could be for some one under their circumstances. There are the usual twists and turns in the book that keep you busy and reluctant to stop reading...so enjoy....enjoy...and be amazed how we lost so many interesting words and descriptions to mediocre literature.
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