The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was not qualified to handle at once vigorously and truthfully. The simple and natural – quiet description and simple pathos – are, I think Acton Bell's forte. I liked "Agnes Grey" better than the present work." Juliet Barker, in her biography of the Brontës, concluded that "Charlotte, it appears, was prepared to consign her sister’s novel to oblivion because she considered its subject at odds with her own perception of what Anne’s character was and ought to have been." Elizabeth Gaskell repeated Charlotte's words about Anne in "The Life of Charlotte Brontë", claiming that the subject of "The Tenant" "was
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for her own sake but for young Arthur's. She wants to "obviate his becoming such a gentleman as his father." According to Stevie Davies, Anne's depiction of the woman as fee-earning artist "trebly trespasses on the domain of the masculine: female artists dabbed in water-colours or sketched decoratively in pen and ink; ladies did not engage in trade; and, besides, tools of her trade [legally belonging to her husband] in this case count as stolen." Melinda Maunsell believes that Helen is "both revealed and concealed by her artistic hand; providing her with an acceptable means of expression within her social