The Mayor of Casterbridge

Hardy, Thomas

Young farm worker Michael Henchard arrives in Casterbridge, Wessex, with his wife and child, looking for a job. Instead, he finds rum. At the town fair, Henchard quarrels with his wife and drunkenly auctions her and his daughter to the assembled crowd. He sells his family to a sailor for five guineas, a monstrous crime that marks him for a lifetime of guilt and pain.
 
The next morning, Henchard swears off drink. Eighteen years later, he is the wealthy—and sober—mayor of Casterbridge, his terrible secret buried deep in the past. But when Henchard falls in love with a young woman on a trip to the island of Jersey, his inability to marry her threatens to destroy her reputation. The sudden return of his wife and daughter presents Henchard with a chance to finally make things right—or doom himself forever.