Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy

Mellstock is a small Dorset village with strong opinions about church music.�When the new schoolmistress, Fancy Day, arrives and promptly captivates every man in the parish, the village's band of folk musicians finds itself contending with two threats at once: the vicar's plan to replace them with a modern organ, and the distraction of watching Dick Dewy fall helplessly in love.�Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) is Hardy's first major novel and his most quietly contented one. Organised by the seasons, rooted in rural English life, and genuinely funny, it's a portrait of a tight-knit community on the cusp of change. A new world is encroaching, but slowly. For now, there is courtship, there is snow on a clear Christmas Eve night and wind in the trees, and there is music.