In her 2006 biography of Thomas Hardy, the author Claire Tomalin called the book a "masterpiece," a deeply imagined dramatic and poetic work, with a narrative on a grand scale and paced with extraordinary moments.[9] She praised it as being built on the territory in which Hardy worked best, in which the rural landscape is drawn with a naturalist's eye and in which country people play out their lives between custom and education, work and ideas, and love of place and experience of change.[10] Hardy's portrait of Henchard – "depressive, black-tempered, self-destructive, and also lovable as a child is lovable" – she considered one of his strongest achievements.[8] She did concur with Hardy, however, in noting that he tried to pack in too many incidents.[11]
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