Michael Henchard is a wealthy corn-merchant, and Mayor of Casterbridge. One day a young woman named Elizabeth-Jane comes to his office with a letter from her mother, Susan.

Henchard is shocked. Susan was once his wife, but twenty years ago, when he was drunk, they quarrelled. He sold her and their little daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor.

Is this girl really Henchard’s daughter? And how can he put right the wrong he did her mother, so many years before? To make matters worse, Henchard has promised to marry his lover, Lucetta Sueur. Henchard must find a solution to these complicated problems, without the people of Casterbridge discovering the disgrace in his past ...