This edition presents a critically established text based on comparisons of every revised version. Hardy placed this tale among his Novels of Character and Environment, a group which is held to include his most characteristic work. A new edition of one of Hardy's best-loved novels, a love story played out in a rural community whose church choir is under threat. Introduction explores the tension in the novel between a vanishing rural idyll and the social realities making change inevitable; the novel's portrait of rural life and character; its revealing textual history and the relation of art to elegy. Useful notes provide historical background, gloss dialect and unfamiliar terms, and highlight significant revisions. Includes maps of Hardy's Wessex and the fictional setting of Mellstock. Thorough Chronology and up-to-date Bibliography. Critically established text restores Hardy's original intentions. New to this edition New introduction by Phillip Mallett. New, expanded notes. Both introduction and notes take account of recent critical discussion in the 27 years since the edition was first published. New select bibliography. Novel reset, but retains the critically established text.