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 and "eloquence in proclaiming the equality of men and women." She believed that "The Tenant" "might be said to be the first manifesto for 'Women's Lib'". Inga-Stina Ewbank considered Anne the least talented of the sisters and claimed that the framing structure, where "Helen can reveal her innermost being to the diary" while Gilbert is "bound to be as objective as possible," "throws novel out of balance." However, she believed that "through the very nature of its central concern, "The Tenant" is feminist in the deepest sense of the word." Daphne du Maurier discussed "The Tenant" in the context Anne's