Far from the Madding Crowd was Hardy's breakthrough novel. He had published three books before it, which generally left critics unimpressed. As Dale Kramer notes in Critical Essays on Thomas Hardy: The Novels, reviewers of Hardy's early works

were struck by the seemingly uncoordinated, coincidence-laden plots, and also by the rural settings where the sense of time was that of an idyll, by fantastic implausibilities mixed with poetic revelation of inner identities, and by the folklore of "Wessex" that resisted the importunities of modern existence.

By the time of Far from the Madding Crowd even critical reviewers realized they were dealing with substantial works calling for judgment not in relation to popular writers of the day, but in relation to recognized masters.

Once Hardy's literary importance was established, critics were still divided in their analysis of his work. He faced tremendous pressure from...