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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
No significant violence; deaths occur by natural causes and the consequences of hardship
Language
Barely any
Victorian prose; no profanity
Sexual Content
Barely any
No sexual content; the wife-selling at the opening is shocking but not graphic
Substance Use
Some
Heavy drinking is the catalyst for the inciting event and a recurring character flaw
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Relentless downward spiral of a man undone by pride; the novel's fatalistic momentum creates sustained psychological weight
What this book is about
A drunken laborer sells his wife and daughter at a country fair—and spends the next twenty years building himself into the mayor of Casterbridge, only to have his buried past return. Thomas Hardy's Victorian tragedy is a relentless study of pride, fate, and self-destruction; one of literature's great examinations of a man who is his own worst enemy.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Wife-selling as the novel's inciting event
Relentless tragic decline of the protagonist
Reader Verification
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