![]() And so he vows to abstain from alcohol for 20 years, and moves to Casterbridge, where he succeeds as a grain merchant – and becomes the mayor.Years later, Susan and Elizabeth Jane return to the scene of the fair, where Susan tries to find word of Michael, because her other “husband,” Newson, has died. When Michael sobers up, he searches for them but cannot find them. In this masterpiece, Hardy charts the rise and fall of Michael Henchard, who, as a young man, tragically gets drunk at a fair and sells his wife, Susan, to a sailor, Newson, for five guineas, along with their daughter Elizabeth-Jane. The prose is exquisite, the plot intricate, and the structure a superb ring composition. My favorite is The Mayor of Casterbridge, an almost- perfect Greek tragedy set in England in the 19th century. Hardy’s fans have their differences: some prefer his reputed masterpieces, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (one of my favorites) and Jude the Obscure (too melodramatic even for me), while I dally with The Woodlanders and A Laodicean. ![]() Lawrence considered Hardy the best novelist of the 19th century Stella Gibbons criticized Hardy’s (and Lawrence’s) “loam-and-lovechild” novels and satirized them in Cold Comfort Farm. Writers have radically different views on Thomas Hardy. ![]()
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