 By 1920, in a reappraisal of the piece, Samuel Langford wrote in "The Manchester Guardian" that "the gruesome strain is the real Gilbertian element" but "the opera has abundant charm among its more forbidding qualities".In 1934 Hesketh Pearson rated the libretto among Gilbert's best.In a 1937 review, "The Manchester Guardian" declared, 

In 1984, Arthur Jacobs rated "Ruddigore" "One of the weaker of Gilbert's librettos, it was seen (especially after the freshness of invention in "The Mikado") to be rather obviously relying on brushed-up ideas...