The Mayor of Casterbridge -- Thomas Hardy (with explanatory notes)
'The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?' Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is fated to be a modern-day tragic hero, unable to survive in the new commercial world, his story is also a journey towards love.
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe USA, 1846 How it starts: "·Fortunato and I both were members of very old and important Italian families. We used to play together when we were children" How it ends: "In pace requiescat!" PDF + AUDIO
