Looking for work as a hay-trusser wile traveling with his family, young Michael Henchard gets drunk one night and, in a fit of rage, sells his wife and infant daughter to a stranger for 5 guineas. Later regretful of his choice, Henchard gives up alcohol and eventually becomes a successful businessman and the mayor of Casterbride, a fictional town in the English countryside. But the past is never far from Henchard, whose reformed ways are tested by the reappearance of his wife and daughter.