The Mayor of Casterbridge

Illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith
Introduction by Keith Wilson
Edited by Keith Wilson
Notes by Keith Wilson
$26.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics
20 per carton
On sale Nov 13, 2018 | 978-0-241-34777-5
Sales rights: US, Canada, Open Mkt
Thomas Hardy's haunting study of guilt and lost love, now in a beautiful new hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled "A Story of a Man of Character," The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard, is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
“For the past decade, Penguin has been producing handsome hardcover versions of their classics (…) both elegant and quirky in shocks of bright color” 
The New York Times

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Thomas Hardy's haunting study of guilt and lost love, now in a beautiful new hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled "A Story of a Man of Character," The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard, is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Praise

“For the past decade, Penguin has been producing handsome hardcover versions of their classics (…) both elegant and quirky in shocks of bright color” 
The New York Times