The Mayor of Casterbridge
- 363
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
- Film 2000 +3
- On screen
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About the book
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth. It was first published as a weekly serialisation from January 1886.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen 4 times — from 1921 to 2003.
- FilmThe ClaimIMDb
- SeriesThe Mayor of CasterbridgeIMDb
- FilmThe Mayor of CasterbridgeIMDb
- TV filmThe Mayor of CasterbridgeIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 96 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 39% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.6 | 5 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 91 | 95% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“God almighty, what was Hardy thinking when he wrote this? I have not read up on any of the doubtless hundreds of literary reviews, so let me be blunt and anachronistic: to me Henchard seems an unlucky guy with ADHD and a temper problem who…”
“I know so many regard this as Hardy's best novel, but not for me. It is not the bleakness, which I rather revel in, but the increasingly strained twists in the plot which rather annoyed me. (His superficial consideration of how Elizabeth-Jane is affected by all the deceit surprised me).”
Frequently asked
How long is The Mayor of Casterbridge?
It has 363 pages — longer than 77% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Classics — and a score of 7.7, the closest to this book.
