"Wife selling (English custom) Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Wife selling provides the backdrop for Thomas Hardy's novel ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"", in which the central character sells his wife at the beginning of the story, an act that haunts him for the rest of his life,"
"The Mayor of Casterbridge 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. The novel is considered to be one of the Hardy's masterpieces, although it has been criticised for incorporating too many incidents: a consequence of the author trying to include something in every weekly published instalment."
"inspiration of the author Thomas Hardy, whose novel ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" uses a fictionalised version of Dorchester as its setting. Dorchester's roots stem back to prehistoric times. The earliest settlements were about southwest of the modern town centre in the vicinity of Maiden Castle, a large Iron Age hill fort that was one of the most powerful settlements in pre-Roman Britain. Different tribes lived there from 4000 BC. The Durotriges were likely to have been there when the Romans arrived in Britain in 43 AD. The Romans defeated the local tribes by 70 AD and established a garrison that"
"Thomas Hardy's Wessex The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area ""Wessex"" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"". In an 1895 preface to the novel ""Far From the Madding Crowd"" he described"
"being set somewhat later — in the late 1840s, corresponding to Hardy's youth in Dorchester. Hardy started work on ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" in the spring of 1884, after a three-year pause. He completed it in a little over a year, and it was first issued in weekly parts in January 1886, followed by full publication in May 1886. A reader for the publisher, Smith, Elder & Co. was not impressed and complained that the lack of gentry among the characters made it uninteresting. It was issued with a small print run of only 750 copies. Hardy himself felt that"
"open to the public. Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford. William Barnes, the West Country dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town. There are statues of both Barnes and Hardy in the town centre; Barnes outside St. Peter's Church, and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads. John Cowper Powys's novel ""Maiden Castle"" (1936) is set in Dorchester and Powys intended it to be ""a Rival of the ""Mayor of Casterbridge"". Powys"
"The Mayor of Casterbridge (TV series) The Mayor of Casterbridge is a 1978 BBC seven-part serial based on the eponymous book by the British novelist Thomas Hardy. The six hour drama was written by television dramatist Dennis Potter with Alan Bates as the title character. It was released as a 3-disc DVD box set in May 2003. On a drunken impulse, Henchard sells his wife and daughter at a country fair, an outrageous act for which he suffers agonizing remorse. Years later, when he has become a respected and prosperous man, his wife returns to find him. Henchard's attempt to"
"right the long-ago wrong sets in motion a series of events that spell his destruction. The Mayor of Casterbridge (TV series) The Mayor of Casterbridge is a 1978 BBC seven-part serial based on the eponymous book by the British novelist Thomas Hardy. The six hour drama was written by television dramatist Dennis Potter with Alan Bates as the title character. It was released as a 3-disc DVD box set in May 2003. On a drunken impulse, Henchard sells his wife and daughter at a country fair, an outrageous act for which he suffers agonizing remorse. Years later, when he has"
"Egdon Heath Egdon Heath is a fictitious area of Thomas Hardy's Wessex inhabited sparsely by the people who cut the furze (gorse) that grows there. The entire action of Hardy's novel ""The Return of the Native"" takes place on Egdon Heath, and it also features in ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" and the short story ""The Withered Arm"" (1888). The area is rife with witchcraft and superstition. Hardy located the Dorsetshire heath in his maps, the end-papers for editions of his work published in his lifetime, and in ""The Return of the Native"", as an amalgam of scattered areas of moorland"
"landscape is drawn with a naturalist's eye and in which country people play out their lives between custom and education, work and ideas, and love of place and experience of change.. Hardy's portrait of Henchard – depressive, black-tempered, self-destructive but also lovable as a child is lovable – she considered one of his strongest achievements. She did concur with Hardy, however, in noting that he has tried to pack in too many incidents. The Mayor of Casterbridge The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy."
"and he departs for good. Later, regretting her coldness, she and Farfrae set out to find him. They arrive too late, and learn that he has died alone. They also find his last written statement: his dying wish is to be forgotten. The novel is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge, based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset. The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels. In the opening sentence of the novel, Hardy writes that the events took place ""before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span"". The literary critic Dale Kramer saw it as"
"Thomas Hardy, and these novels are set in Somerset and Dorset, part of Hardy's mythical Wessex. American scholar Richard Maxwell describes these four novels ""as remarkably successful with the reading public of his time"". ""Maiden Castle"", the last of the Wessex novels, is set in Dorchester, Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge, and which he intended to be a ""rival"" to Hardy's ""Mayor of Casterbridge"". All the same, despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy and Walter Scott, as well as for lesser figures such as Ainsworth, Powys was clearly a modernist, and has affinities also with Fyodor"
"depictions of Stonehenge, that of an anti-pagan approach, with paintings by the likes of William Overend Geller, with his painting ""The Druid's Sacrifice"" in 1832. In the novel ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"" by Thomas Hardy, the main character, Tess, is captured by the police at Stonehenge, the 'heathen' nature of the setting being used to highlight the character's temperament. The image of Stonehenge became adapted in the twentieth century by those wishing to advertise using a monument viewed as a symbol of Britain. The Royal Navy exploited this sense of identification by naming an S class destroyer and one of"
"Egdon Heath (Holst) Egdon Heath, Op. 47, H. 172, subtitled ""A Homage to Thomas Hardy"", is a tone poem by Gustav Holst, written in 1927. Holst considered it his most perfectly realised composition. Egdon Heath is a fictional place in the equally fictional region of Wessex in the south-west of England, where Thomas Hardy set all his major works. The novel ""The Return of the Native"" is entirely set on Egdon Heath, and it is also referred to in ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" and the short story ""The Withered Arm"". During the writing of the tone poem, Holst met and"
"on its own, or as part of a hero-combat play. Those who accompanied it were reported as being dressed in ordinary clothing. Sometimes they carried a wooden wassail bowl which was decorated with ribbons and sprigs of evergreen. The tradition was located in a triangular area bounded by Stroud, Cricklade, and Chipping Sodbury. This was spread across the eastern end of the southern Cotswolds as well as an area just east of the Cotswolds itself. Within this area, it was reported as existing in ten villages in Gloucestershire, and three in Wiltshire. The historian Ronald Hutton suggested that the custom"
"in classical heraldry and is found on a number of church windows in derived shields such as the Arms of the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster (Westminster Abbey, which was founded by the king). At its greatest extent Wessex encompassed the modern areas of Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset and Wiltshire, as well as the western half of Berkshire and the eastern hilly flank of Somerset. This covers an area of about . The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised Wessex as a setting for many of his novels, adopting his friend William Barnes' term ""Wessex"" for"
"is set in Dorchester, Hardy's Casterbridge, and was intended by Powys to be a ""rival"" to Hardy's ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"". ""Maiden Castle"" is the last of Powys's so-called Wessex novels, ""Wolf Solent"" (1929), ""A Glastonbury Romance"" (1932), and ""Weymouth Sands"" (1934), which are set in Somerset and Dorset. Hardy was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W. Somerset Maugham's novel ""Cakes and Ale"" (1930). Thomas Hardy's works also feature prominently in the American playwright Christopher Durang's ""The Marriage of Bette and Boo"" (1985), in which a graduate thesis analysing ""Tess of the"
"purchased"". He was imprisoned for ""having deserted his wife"". The return of a wife after 18 years results in Michael Henchard's downfall in Thomas Hardy's novel ""Mayor of Casterbridge"" (1886). A bad-tempered, impulsive and cruel husband, feeling burdened by his wife, Henchard sells her to a stranger for five guineas. He becomes a successful businessman and rises to the position of mayor, but the return of his wife many years later prompts his fall back into penury. The custom was also referred to in the 19th-century French play, ""Le Marché de Londres"". Commenting on the drama and contemporary French attitudes"
"of such novels as ""Far from the Madding Crowd"" (1874), ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" (1886), ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"" (1891), and ""Jude the Obscure"" (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties"
"The Mayor of Casterbridge (2003 film) The Mayor of Casterbridge is a British made-for-TV film, produced by Georgina Lowe for Sally Head Productions and directed by David Thacker, based on the 1886 novel by Thomas Hardy. Appearing in the film are Ciarán Hinds as Henchard, Juliet Aubrey as Susan Henchard, Jodhi May as Elizabeth Jane, James Purefoy as Farfrae, and Polly Walker as Lucetta. The series was released as a 2-disc DVD in 2004. Hardy's characters, some deeply flawed, struggle throughout the film against accidents of fate and with difficult moral dilemmas. This film emphasizes the constant struggle of Hardy's"
"of the countryside is seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), including ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" (1886), and ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"" (1891). Hardy is a Victorian realist, in the tradition of George Eliot, and like Charles Dickens he was also highly critical of much in Victorian society. Another significant late-19th-century novelist is George Gissing (1857–1903), who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best known novel is ""New Grub Street"" (1891). Although pre-dated by John Ruskin's ""The King of the Golden River"" in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy genre is generally said to begin with"
"poet, his first collection was not published until 1898, so that initially he gained fame as the author of such novels as, ""Far from the Madding Crowd"" (1874), ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" (1886), ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"" (1891), and ""Jude the Obscure"" (1895). He ceased writing novels following adverse criticism of this last novel. In novels such as ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" and ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"" Hardy attempts to create modern works in the genre of tragedy, that are modelled on the Greek drama, especially Aeschylus and Sophocles, though in prose, not poetry, a novel not drama, and with"
"of the Turberville family of Dorset (descendants of George Turberville) until sold in the eighteenth century and it is the inspiration for Wellbridge House—Tess's ancestral home where she and Angel Clare spent their unfortunate honeymoon—in Thomas Hardy's novel ""Tess of the D'Urbervilles"": They drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the left, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place half its name. Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known"
"his novels ""The Ordeal of Richard Fevered"" (1859) and ""The Egotist"" (1879). ""His reputation stood very high well into"" the 20th century but then seriously declined. An interest in rural matters and the changing social and economic situation of the countryside is seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). A Victorian realist, in the tradition of George Eliot, he was also influenced both in his novels and poetry by Romanticism, especially by William Wordsworth. He gained fame as the author of such novels as, ""Far from the Madding Crowd"" (1874), ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"" (1886), ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"""
"licensed for weddings, and is a meeting place for many local organizations. It also houses a centre for elderly people, nurseries and fitness groups, and alternative therapy practitioners. Between the house and the medieval Monnow Bridge, along Drybridge Street is The Three Horseshoes Inn and 15th-century half-timbered houses which were restored at the end of the 19th century, in part using large wooden wallpaper blocks (formerly used for hand printing) fixed between the timber framing panels at first-floor level. These blocks were provided by Crompton-Roberts, who owned a printing business. Drybridge House, Monmouth Drybridge House is a large 17th-century Grade"
"and Kendrew Quadrangles in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has led to the pub being once again close to St John's activities. St John's took over the management of the pub in 1997, and now uses all pub profits to fund scholarships for graduate students. It is believed that Thomas Hardy wrote much of his novel ""Jude the Obscure"" in this pub. In this novel, the city of Christminster is a thinly-disguised Oxford, and it is thought that a pub that appears in certain passages of the novel is based on The Lamb & Flag. The pub also featured frequently"
"or marry a carpenter. In the United Kingdom, as part of community celebration, many towns held traditional Shrove Tuesday ""mob football"" games, some dating as far back as the 17th century. The practice mostly died out in the 19th century after the passing of the Highway Act 1835 which banned playing football on public highways. A number of towns have maintained the tradition, including Alnwick in Northumberland (Scoring the Hales), Ashbourne in Derbyshire (called the Royal Shrovetide Football), Atherstone in Warwickshire (called simply the Atherstone Ball Game), St Columb Major in Cornwall (called Hurling the Silver Ball), and Sedgefield in"
"and takes in along the route such villages and towns as Bere Regis, Lulworth Cove, Corfe Castle, Shaftesbury, Evershot and the county town, Dorchester. Hardy Way The Hardy Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in southern England in the United Kingdom. The route runs for 354 km or 220 miles. The route is named for the writer Thomas Hardy and runs through Thomas Hardy's Wessex, his version of Wessex, the region of the West Country of England portrayed in his books, such as ""Tess of the d'Urbervilles"", ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"", ""Far From the Madding Crowd"", ""Jude the Obscure"" and"
"50; Hardy extended the reference for the 1895 edition. The village of Puddletown, near Dorchester, is the inspiration for the novel's Weatherbury. Dorchester, in turn, inspired Hardy's Casterbridge. In ""The Mayor of Casterbridge"", Hardy briefly mentions two characters from ""Far from the Madding Crowd"" – Farmer Everdene and Farmer Boldwood, both in happier days. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In 2007, the book finished 10th on the ""Guardian""'s list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel was retold by author F.J. Campbell in ""The Islanders"", set in"
"the crucifixion. Rushbearing is an old English ecclesiastical festival in which rushes are collected and carried to be strewn on the floor of the parish church. The tradition dates back to the time when most buildings had earthen floors and rushes were used as a form of renewable floor covering for cleanliness and insulation. The festival was widespread in Britain from the Middle Ages and well established by the time of Shakespeare, but had fallen into decline by the beginning of the 19th century, as church floors were flagged with stone. The custom was revived later in the 19th century"
"bookbinding, until almost the present day. Early architectural use of motifs lifted from the Indian subcontinent is known as Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture. One of the earliest examples is the façade of Guildhall, London (1788–1789). The style gained momentum in the west with the publication of views of India by William Hodges, and William and Thomas Daniell from about 1795. Examples of ""Hindoo"" architecture are Sezincote House (c. 1805) in Gloucestershire, built for a nabob returned from Bengal, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. ""Turquerie"", which began as early as the late 15th century, continued until at least the 18th century,"
"as Holt and Isycoed on the west side of the River Dee. Rushbearing Rushbearing is an old English ecclesiastical festival in which rushes are collected and carried to be strewn on the floor of the parish church. The tradition dates back to the time when most buildings had earthen floors and rushes were used as a form of renewable floor covering for cleanliness and insulation. The festival was widespread in Britain from the Middle Ages and well established by the time of Shakespeare, but had fallen into decline by the beginning of the 19th century, as church floors were flagged"
"medieval costume take part in a pub crawl to raise money for local charities. It has its origins in the 13th century, when an Assize of Bread and Ale was used to regulate the quality of goods. The current version was resurrected in the 1990s by the Sheriff of York and is led by the Guild of Scriveners. In June 2015 York CAMRA listed 101 pubs on its map of the city centre, some of which are hundreds of years old. These include the Golden Fleece, Ye Olde Starre Inne, noted for its sign which has spanned the street since"