Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) preceded The Return of the Native and Far from the Madding Crowd, as the first of Thomas Hardy's novels set in Wessex.

A holiday tale of charm and appeal, Under the Greenwood Tree was Hardy's second novel. The book brought him his first taste of literary and public success. The warmly-remembered holiday and love story told in Under the Greenwood Tree is sure to please readers today. Full of nostalgia and evocative scenes, Under the Greenwood Tree evokes Hardy's sense of place, time and human relationships, with little of the darkness found in Hardy's later, great works such as Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Author: Thomas Hardy
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Aegypan
Published: 12/01/2006
Pages: 168
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781598186475

About the Author
Hardy, Thomas: - "Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. He destroyed the manuscript of his first, unplaced novel, but -- encouraged by mentor and friend George Meredith -- tried again. His important work took place in an area of southern England he called Wessex, named after the English kingdom that existed before the Norman Conquest."