Thomas Hardy novels all about

(i) Thomas Hardy was a British novelist of the 19th century. He wrote about traditional rural communities of England.
(ii) This was actually a time when large farmers fenced off land, bought machines and employed labourers to produce for the market. The old rural culture with its independent farmers was dying out.
(iii) In his novel Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) Thomas Hardy has exclusively written about industrialisation and rural life. The novel is about Michael Henchard, a successful grain merchant, who becomes the mayor of the farming town of Casterbridge. He is an independent-minded man who follows his own style in conducting business. He can also be both unpredictably generous and cruel with his employees. Consequently, he is no match for his manager and rival Donald Farfrae who runs his business on efficient managerial lines and is well regarded for he is smooth and even- tempered with everyone.
(iv) We can see that Hardy mourns the loss of the more personalised world that is disappearing, even as he is aware of its problems and the advantages of the new order.