Reading Order
Under the Greenwood TreeUnder the Greenwood Tree Reading Order
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) by Thomas Hardy is his first pastoral novel and the only one organized around pastoral comedy rather than tragedy — a short, affectionate portrait of the village of Mellstock (based on Stinsford, Hardy's own village in Dorset) and the love affair between the tranter's son Dick Dewy and the schoolmistress Fancy Day, set against the displacement of the church choir by a barrel organ. Hardy named it after the song in As You Like It, and the novel shares something of Shakespeare's pastoral comedy in its treatment of the village community — a world of seasonal rhythms and social ritual that the novel clearly regards as more valuable than anything the modern world might offer in exchange. Under the Greenwood Tree is the novel that Hardy's readers most often give to readers who have found his tragic novels too devastating.
Where to start
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) — the only novel in the Mellstock sequence
Complete Under the Greenwood Tree Book List
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Under the Greenwood Tree
Thomas Hardy·1872
Under the Greenwood Tree — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Under the Greenwood Tree a good starting point for Hardy?
Yes — it is Hardy's most accessible novel and the most cheerful; unlike Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess, Jude, or The Mayor of Casterbridge, it ends happily and without tragedy. Start here if you want to try Hardy without committing to his tragic mode; move to Far from the Madding Crowd next for a longer, more complex pastoral experience.
What is the Mellstock Quire?
The Mellstock Quire (choir) is the group of village musicians who play at church services — violins, bass viol, clarinet — whose displacement by the new barrel organ forms one of the novel's two plots. Hardy's grandfather was himself a member of the Stinsford choir on which the Mellstock Quire is based, and Hardy regarded this world with great personal affection.
How does Under the Greenwood Tree relate to Hardy's tragic novels?
It is the positive counterpart to the tragedies — the same Wessex world, the same social determinants, but seen in a moment of pastoral equilibrium before the forces of modernity have fully arrived. Reading Under the Greenwood Tree first and The Woodlanders or The Return of the Native afterward shows what Hardy valued in the world his tragedies show being destroyed.
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