Under the Greenwood Tree or, The Mellstock quire

Under the Greenwood Tree is the second published novel of the English writer Thomas Hardy, issued anonymously in 1872. Hardy called it a fairly true picture, taken at first hand, of the ways and customs of the village musicians he had known as a boy, and the book was the first of the Wessex novels he would go on writing for the rest of his life.

The story belongs to the west gallery musicians of Mellstock and to Dick Dewy, the youngest of them, who falls in love with Fancy Day, the village schoolmistress. Her beauty brings her a richer suitor in the farmer Shiner and the attention of Mr Maybold, the new vicar, who tells the choir that he intends to replace their gallery singing and string playing with an organ, played by Fancy herself. Dick and his father, Reuben Dewy, negotiate with the vicar on the choir's behalf and lose the argument.

Beyond the choir room the novel keeps to the village round of winter evenings, walks and courtship. Fancy's father opposes a match with a man beneath her, and her father's change of mind is brought about by her refusal to eat rather than by argument.