The Mayor of Casterbridge
Critique • Quotes
First edition, 1886, in two volumesOriginally called
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character
First published
1886
Literary form
Novel
Genres
Literary
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Approx. 127,000 words
Notable lines
One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reach one third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot.
— Last line
She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.
That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in arms, there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of domesticity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.
Her strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquillity had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.
— Last lines
Critique • Quotes
