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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
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: the life and death of a man of character (1886) Novel by Thomas *Hardy, recounting the bleak story of Michael Henchard who begins the book drunk (selling his wife and daughter for five guineas at a fair) and ends it destitute (dying in a hut on Egdon Heath). In the intervening years this man of character, turned sober and respectable, has risen to become the prosperous mayor of Casterbridge. Through his own obstinacy he gradually loses everything once again, this time to his energetic Scottish manager, Donald Farfrae – who marries in turn Henchard's intended new wife (Lucetta Le Sueur) and his supposed daughter Elizabeth-Jane (discovered not to be his), as well as becoming mayor and taking over Henchard's business and his house.
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