None of the great Victorian novels is more vivid and readable than `The Mayor of Casterbridge`. Set in the heart of Hardy`s Wessex, the `partly real, partly dream country` he founded on his native Dorset, it charts the rise and self-induced downfall of asingle `man of character`. The fast-moving and ingeniously contrived narrative is Shakespearian in its tragic force, and features some of the author`s most striking episodes and brilliant passages of description.