The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth.At a rustic fair near Casterbridge in Wessex Michael Henchard, a 21-year-old hay-trusser, argues together with his wife Susan. Drunk on rum-laced furmity he auctions her off, along side their baby daughter Elizabeth-Jane, to Richard Newson, a passing sailor, for five guineas. Sober and remorseful subsequent day, he's too late to locate his family. He vows to not touch liquor again for 21 years.Believing the auction to be legally binding, Susan lives as Newson's wife for 18 years. After Newson is lost stumped Susan, lacking any means of support, decides to hunt out Henchard again, taking her daughter together with her . Susan has told Elizabeth-Jane little about Henchard, and therefore the girl knows only that he's a relation by marriage. Susan discovers that Henchard has become a really successful hay and merchant and Mayor of Casterbridge, known for his staunch sobriety. He has avoided explaining how he lost his wife, allowing people to assume he's a widower.When the couple are reunited, Henchard proposes remarrying Susan after a sham courtship, this in his view being the only and most discreet thanks to remedy matters and to stop Elizabeth-Jane learning of their disgrace. to try to to this, however, he's forced to interrupt off an engagement with a lady named Lucetta Templeman, who had nursed him when he was ill.Donald Farfrae, a young and energetic Scotsman passing through Casterbridge, helps Henchard by showing him the way to salvage substandard grain he has bought. Henchard takes a liking to the person, persuades him to not emigrate, and hires him as his corn factor, rudely avoidance a person named Jopp to whom he had already offered the work . Farfrae is extremely successful within the role, and increasingly outshines his employer. When he catches the attention of Elizabeth-Jane, Henchard dismisses him and Farfrae sets himself up as an independent merchant. Farfrae conducts himself with scrupulous honesty, but Henchard is so determined to ruin his rival that he makes risky business decisions that prove disastrous.Susan falls ill and dies shortly after the couple's remarriage, leaving Henchard a letter to be opened on the day of Elizabeth-Jane's wedding. Henchard reads the letter, which isn't properly sealed, and learns that Elizabeth-Jane isn't actually his daughter, but Newson's - his Elizabeth-Jane having died as an infant. Henchard's new knowledge causes him to behave coldly towards the second Elizabeth-Jane.Elizabeth-Jane accepts an edge as companion to Lucetta, a newcomer, unaware that she had had a relationship with Henchard which resulted in her social ruin. Now wealthy after receiving an inheritance from her aunt, and learning that Henchard's wife had died, Lucetta has come to Casterbridge to marry him. However, on meeting Farfrae, she becomes interested in him, and he to her.Henchard's financial difficulties persuade him that he should marry Lucetta quickly. But she is crazy with Farfrae, and that they run away one weekend to urge married, not telling Henchard until after the very fact . Henchard's credit collapses and he goes bankrupt. Farfrae buys Henchard's old business and tries to assist Henchard by employing him as a journeyman.Lucetta asks Henchard to return her old love letters, and Henchard asks Jopp to require them to her. Jopp, who still bears a grudge for having been cheated out of the position of factor, opens the letters and reads them aloud at an inn. a number of the townspeople publicly shame Henchard and Lucetta, creating effigies of them during a skimming on ride. Lucetta is so devastated by the spectacle that she collapses, features a miscarriage, and dies.