On 20 October 1871, six months after the appearance of Desperate Remedies, his first published novel, Hardy wrote to the publisher William Tinsley: 'Early in the summer I began, nearly finished, a little rural story, but owing to the representation of critic-friends who were taken with D[esperate] R[emedies] I relinquished that, have proceeded a little way with another, the essence of which is plot, without crime but on the plan of D.R.'
¹ The 'little rural story', Under the Greenwood Tree, was in fact more complete than Hardy implied: two days previously, indeed, the manuscript had been returned to Hardy with a temporizing letter of non-acceptance from the publisher Alexander Macmillan.2 As with Desperate Remedies, it would eventually be offered to and accepted by Tinsley. The other story, with which Hardy had indeed proceeded but 'a little way', was A Pair of Blue Eyes (at this stage entitled 'A winning tongue had he'):