Thomas Hardy 
The Mayor of Casterbridge 

Set in the fictional town of Casterbridge, 'The Mayor of Casterbridge’ is Thomas Hardy’s tragic story of Michael Henchard who over indulges in alcohol at a county fair and decides to auction off his wife and daughter to a sailor. When he recovers his sobriety Mr. Henchard realizes his mistake but it is too late to get his family back. Devastated he decides not to touch alcohol again for the next twenty-one years. The novel advances eighteen years to find the teetotaling Henchard as the Mayor of Casterbridge and a successful grain merchant. When his wife and daughter return to town a precipitous decline in Henchard’s fortune is set in motion. One of Hardy’s Wessex novels, 'The Mayor of Casterbridge’ is a classic tragic story of the consequences of alcohol abuse.