 First edition title page | |
| Author | Thomas Hardy |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Tinsley Brothers[1] |
Publication date | 1872[1] |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print, two volumes |
Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by the English writer Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, and the first of what was to become his series of Wessex novels. Critics recognise it as an important precursor to his later tragic works, setting the scene for the Wessex that the author would return to again and again. Hardy himself called the story of the Mellstock Quire and its west-gallery musicians "a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of [the 1850s]".
- ^ a b "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2020.