HenchThe Gamekeeper's Cottage, Yellowham Wood.

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The Gamekeeper's Cottage, Yellowham Wood

High Bockhampton

Photograph

See commentary below

Source: The 1920 Macmillan edition

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and commentary by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage illustrated

The game-keeper, Geoffrey Day, lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood; but the wood was intersected by a lane at a place not far from the house, and some trees had of late years been felled, to give the solitary cottager a glimpse of the occasional passer-by. [Part the Second, "Spring," Chapter 6, "Yalbury Wood."]

Commentary

This building is reputedly the original of Keeper Day's cottage in Under the Greenwood Tree. Hardy substituted the place name "Yalbury" for "Yellowham." The idyllic cottage of the prose pastoral surrounded by benign woods is nevertheless the scene of some tension as neither of Fancy's parents is particularly receptive to the notion of Dick's becoming their son-in-law, a reflection of the traditional class-consciousness of the middle classes over those of the "labouring" classes — even though, like the building contractor Thomas Hardy, Senior, Tranter Dewy is an independent businessman. What both Geoffrey Day and the "second" Mrs. Day, Jane, are hoping for is a man of the class of Parson Maybold or the status and wealth of Frederic Shiner. The cottage's multiple chimneys and two storeys bespeak its status as a superior cottage rather than a mere bungalow.

Bibliography

Hardy, Thomas. Under The Greenwood Tree. A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (1870). Il. R. Knight. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878.

Hardy, Thomas. Under The Greenwood Tree. < span class="book">Works [Wessex Edition]. London: Macmillan, 1912-13. 21 vols. with photogravure frontispieces. [The picture of Tranter Dewy's House is facing p. 44.]

Kay-Robinson, Denys. The Landscape of Thomas Hardy. Exeter: Webb and Bower, 1984.

Pinion, F. B. A Hardy Companion: A Guide to the Works of Thomas Hardy and Their Background. Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1968, rpt. 1984.

Wright, Sarah Bird. Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 2002.

Last modified 19 April 2024