The moving, humane tragedy of a deeply flawed and self-destructive man, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the story of Michael Henchard, who sells his wife and baby daughter at a country fair in a fit of drunken anger. Over the following years he establishes himself as a respected pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but cannot escape his shameful past - or himself. Subtitled 'The Life and Death of a Man of Character', Hardy's intense drama, tragically played out against the rituals of a close-knit Wessex town, is one of his greatest works.