The Mayor of Casterbridge »

Victorian novelist and poet Thomas Hardy focused much of his work -- including classics like Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) on man's futile struggle against unseen forces. Of his rather unromantic outlook on life, Hardy once said, "Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed."

Thomas Hardy's exploration of his most tragic hero, Michael Henchard, is the classic tale of overambition. From his drunken sale of his wife and baby at a country fair, to his subjugation of a farming village, Henchard's life is an epic attempt to bring the world to heel as he hides even from himself all vestiges of emotional vulnerability.