Complete and unabridged, with 55 full-page plates by Edvard Munch, Thomas Cole and J. M. W. Turner. The Mellstock choir — fiddles, bass viol, and men who have played in the gallery for generations — are being replaced by an organ and a pretty young schoolmistress, and one of the choir is in love with her. Hardy subtitled it a rural painting of the Dutch school and meant it: this is his warmest book, written before he decided the universe was against everyone.