Episode 3 of 4

Critical Reception

When: 1872
Where: null
Part of: Thomas Hardy publishes Under the Greenwood Tree

Critics recognized the novel as an important precursor to Hardy's later works, with Horace Moule calling it a 'prose idyll' in 1872.

In his 1872 review for the Saturday Review, Horace Moule called the novel a 'prose idyll'. Critics recognize it as an important precursor to Hardy's later tragic works, setting the scene for the Wessex that the author would return to again and again.

Sources

Under the Greenwood Tree Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-14

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.