It includes a lesbian scene which Hardy's friend Horace Moule
, reviewing it for the Saturday Review, likened to the work of George Sand
.
Gittings, Robert. Young Thomas Hardy. Penguin.
221-2
Literary responses
Thomas Hardy
The laudatory review of it written by Hardy's friend Horace Moule
was one of Moule's last writings before his suicide.
Gittings, Robert. Young Thomas Hardy. Penguin.
252-3
Friends, Associates
Thomas Hardy
The suicide of TH
's friend and mentor Horace Moule
, a brilliant man but a severe depressive, was an event that marked his life, and is traceable in allusions throughout his works
Gittings, Robert. Young Thomas Hardy. Penguin.
254ff
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.