The Mayor of Casterbridge recap

Years after drunkenly selling his wife Susan and their child to a sailor, Michael Henchard has remade himself as a prosperous corn merchant and mayor of Casterbridge. Susan returns with Elizabeth-Jane, and Henchard remarries her to conceal the past. He promotes the able young Scotsman Donald Farfrae, then drives him away through jealousy; Farfrae becomes his commercial rival and eventually supplants him. After Susan dies, Henchard learns Elizabeth-Jane is not his biological daughter. His former lover Lucetta comes to town but marries Farfrae, while the public exposure of Henchard's old wife-sale hastens his ruin. Lucetta dies after townspeople parade an effigy of her former relationship with Henchard. The returned sailor Newson seeks Elizabeth-Jane, and Henchard lies that she is dead, losing her trust when the deceit emerges. He leaves Casterbridge and dies before she can forgive him. Elizabeth-Jane marries Farfrae and is reunited with Newson.

At a country fair in Weydon-Priors, the unemployed hay-trusser Michael Henchard gets drunk and loudly offers his wife Susan and their baby for sale. A sailor named Richard Newson takes the offer seriously, pays five guineas, and leaves with them. Sober the next day, Henchard searches unsuccessfully for his family and swears to avoid alcohol for twenty-one years. Eighteen years later, Susan believes Newson has died and travels with her grown daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to find Henchard. They learn that he has become a wealthy corn merchant and mayor of Casterbridge. His business is under pressure because he has sold poor grain. A young Scotsman, Donald Farfrae, suggests a way to restore it; impressed, Henchard persuades Farfrae to remain as his manager. Susan makes contact with Henchard, and the two meet secretly. To protect their reputations and Elizabeth-Jane's, Henchard proposes that he court Susan anew and then publicly remarry her.

Henchard establishes Susan and Elizabeth-Jane in Casterbridge and remarries Susan, allowing the town to believe she is a widow he has recently met. Farfrae proves popular with workers and townspeople as well as highly capable in business. Henchard initially treats him like a close friend, confiding the story of Susan's sale and speaking of Elizabeth-Jane as his daughter, but admiration turns to envy when Farfrae organizes a successful public celebration while Henchard's competing event fails. Their friendship breaks down. Farfrae leaves Henchard's employment and starts a corn business of his own, promising not to court Elizabeth-Jane after Henchard objects. Susan's health declines and she dies. She leaves Henchard a sealed letter marked not to be opened until Elizabeth-Jane's wedding day. He opens it at once and discovers that his own infant daughter died long ago; the young woman he has taken into his home is Susan and Newson's child.

Stunned to learn that Elizabeth-Jane is not biologically his, Henchard becomes cold toward her without explaining why. She leaves his house to become companion to Lucetta Templeman, a wealthy newcomer at High-Place Hall. Lucetta is the former Lucetta Le Sueur, with whom Henchard had a relationship in Jersey while he believed Susan gone. Henchard once promised to marry her, and she has come expecting that promise to be fulfilled now that Susan is dead. Before the pair can settle their future, Farfrae visits High-Place Hall expecting to see Elizabeth-Jane and instead meets Lucetta. He and Lucetta are immediately drawn to one another. Elizabeth-Jane still cares for Farfrae but notices the growing connection, while Henchard presses Lucetta to recognize their old obligation. The personal rivalry between Henchard and Farfrae now overlaps with their increasingly unequal fortunes in the corn trade.

Lucetta resists Henchard's demand that she marry him and hopes to be free of the compromising letters she sent him in Jersey. She and Farfrae secretly marry. Henchard, meanwhile, makes reckless business bets based on a weather forecast and is ruined when conditions turn against him. His property and business are sold, and Farfrae acquires his house and yard while trying to preserve Henchard's dignity. Henchard accepts work as a labourer in the business he once owned. The furmity seller from Weydon-Priors later appears before the magistrates, recognizes Henchard on the bench, and publicly reveals that he sold his wife years earlier. Henchard admits the story rather than deny it and resigns his public standing. Already displaced by Farfrae in trade and civic esteem, he now learns that his rival has also become Lucetta's husband. Elizabeth-Jane, still unaware of the full history connecting the adults, remains sympathetic to Henchard despite his earlier rejection of her.

Farfrae continues to prosper and becomes mayor, while Henchard lives and works in reduced circumstances. Lucetta fears that the letters documenting her past with Henchard will destroy her new marriage if Farfrae sees them. Henchard eventually entrusts the letters to Jopp for delivery, not knowing that Jopp resents both him and Lucetta. Jopp reads them aloud to townspeople at an inn, spreading the secret through Casterbridge. Henchard's bitterness toward Farfrae deepens. In a struggle in the loft of a corn warehouse, Henchard gains the advantage and could kill his rival, but cannot complete the act and lets him live. Henchard later sees his own effigy in the river and is shaken by the image of his death. Elizabeth-Jane, whose kindness has endured his reversals, again becomes his closest companion. The town's knowledge of Lucetta's history, however, has created the material for a more public act of cruelty.

People hostile to Lucetta arrange a skimmity ride, a noisy procession using effigies of Lucetta and Henchard to mock their former relationship. Farfrae is away when the procession passes High-Place Hall. Lucetta sees it, collapses in shock, and dies soon afterward. Henchard is left with Elizabeth-Jane as his main human connection, and their affection gives him a brief measure of peace after his commercial and social ruin. Farfrae mourns his wife, while Elizabeth-Jane's earlier hopes concerning him no longer face the same barrier. Henchard has survived the public disclosure of his own wrongdoing, but Lucetta has not survived the exposure and communal humiliation attached to hers.

Richard Newson, not dead after all, arrives to find the daughter he raised. Terrified that Elizabeth-Jane will leave him, Henchard tells Newson that she has died, and the sailor departs. Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane remain close for a time as she and Farfrae move toward marriage. Newson eventually returns, exposing Henchard's lie. Elizabeth-Jane recoils from the deception, and Henchard leaves Casterbridge. Once her anger eases, she and Farfrae search for him but fail to trace him. On their wedding day Abel Whittle comes with news that Henchard has recently died in poverty. His written final wish asks that no one mourn him, remember him, or mark his grave. Elizabeth-Jane is distressed that she did not reach him in time to offer forgiveness. She marries Farfrae and accepts Newson as her father, ending with security and family connections that contrast with Henchard's lonely self-erasure.

After Lucetta's death, the sailor Newson comes to Casterbridge seeking Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard, afraid of losing the daughter who has grown close to him, falsely says that she is dead. The lie buys him only a little time. When Newson returns and Elizabeth-Jane learns the truth, Henchard leaves Casterbridge rather than face her anger. She later understands his despair and searches for him with Farfrae, but they cannot find him before their wedding. Abel Whittle eventually brings Henchard's final message: Henchard has died in poverty and asks to be forgotten, with no mourning, flowers, or notice of him. Elizabeth-Jane, now married to Farfrae and reconciled with Newson, regrets that her forgiveness came too late. Henchard's rise and fall are complete, while she carries forward a hard-earned appreciation of the ordinary happiness left to her.