Among the early reactions to Stifter's Nachsommer, one year after its publication, was Hebbel's derisive criticism of the detailed and exhaustive description of objects in the novel. Hebbel's criticism was unkind, but superficially pertinent, because description does indeed abound in Nachsommer. However, the mass of detail that he ridiculed is precisely a source of fascination for modern scholars, who seize upon the number of objects as the distinguishing characteristic of this novel and accord it high esteem because of the very significance of the “things” in it.