Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by
Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of
Wessex novels. Whilst Hardy originally thought of simply calling it
The Mellstock Quire, he settled on a title taken from a song in Shakespeare's
As You Like It (Act II, Scene V).