As Irving Howe 'has stated, the opening of The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of the most brilliant in fiction' (p. Weydon Priors (Wayhill), just north of Melchester (Salisbury) appears today much as Hardy describes it when Michael Henchard, his wife, Susan, and the child arrive there. Most of Hardy's locations are real places thinly disguised with altered names such as Exonbury for Exeter, Evershead for Evershot, and Winton-chester for Winchester. He chose Dorchester as the setting for The Mayor of Casterbridge, but the Dorchester of the eighteen-eighties is not at all like today's busy little city where only a plaque designates the spot of the old Roman ruins, an important meeting place called 'The Maumbury Rings' in the novel. The alert reader who travels in Dorset will recognize many of the places mentioned in the Wessex novels.

The critical introduction is perceptive and readable, and the editor notes the literary movements of the period when there 'was a narrowing down of realism' (p. Martin Seymour-Smith, a British poet, critic, and satirist, has edited a useful paperback of the novel along with excellent notes, there is a chronology of the life and works of Thomas Hardy (18401928 ), a map of Wessex, a key to place names, the author's general preface to the Wessex edition of 1912, and the unabridged text. $2.50.) This printing of The Mayor of Casterbridge ( 1886) is the eleventh from publishing houses in the United States, according to Books in Print. AND NOTES BY MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH BY THOMAS HARDY (New York: Penguin Books, 1978. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The mayor of casterbridge review