The Mayor of Casterbridge
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From its astonishing opening scene, in which the drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter at a country fair, to the breathtaking series of discoveries at its conclusion, The Mayor of Casterbridge claims a unique place among Thomas Hardy's finest and most powerful novels.
Rooted in an actual case of wife selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power, only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim...his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction."
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Thomas Hardy (1840â1928), English poet, dramatist, and novelist, was born on the Egdon Heath in Dorset. He studied in Dorchester and apprenticed to an architect before leaving for London, where he began to write. Unable to find a public for his poetry, which idealized the rural life, he turned to the novel and met with success as well as controversy. The strong public reaction against some of his darker themes turned him back to writing verse. Today several of his novels are considered masterpieces of tragedy.
Pamela Garelick was born in England. She acted in fringe theater there before coming to the United States, where she has worked as a voice-over artist in television and radio and as an audiobook narrator. Now living and working in Greece, she records, translates, and edits voice-overs from all over the world as well as narrating audiobooks in a small studio in her Mediterranean garden. She also paints silk clothing, bakes for the local cafÃĐs, and teaches newcomers the Greek language.
