Book description
The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses
a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the
Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his
decision to abolish the church's traditional 'string choir' and replace
it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day,
causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of
three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold
himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue
and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness
of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy
saw fast disappearing.
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 and wrote both poetry and novels,
including Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess
of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. He died in 1928.
Tim Dolin is Research Fellow in the Australia Research Institute at
Curtin University of Technology in Perth, WA. He is the author of
books and articles on Victorian fiction, and has edited three of
Hardy's novels for Penguin. He has just completed George Eliot for
Oxford's 'Authors in Context' series, and is working on a study of the
significance of British and American popular fiction in the
development of Australian culture.
