Read by Simon Vance. Unabridged. Compact discs. Disc 1 is a "Multimode CD". In addition to the audio content of the story, it contains the companion eBook text in PDF format that can be accessed for reading by inserting the disc into the CD-ROM drive of a computer.
Summary:
From its spectacular opening-- the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passing sailor 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."
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.