Broadcast: Sept. 3-Oct. 15, 1978. Casterbridge's Mayor Michael Henchard is a doomed man. His fall was charted 18 years before, when he drunkenly sold his wife and child to a passing sailor, and is set off when his deserted wife turns up with her now-grown daughter. Ashamed by his deed, Henchard vows never to drink again. He has achieved eminence, respect and wealth. The re-entry of wife and child into his life sets up a convoluted chain of events which results in his ruin and return to drunkenness.
