The Tenant of Wildfell Hall the general dismissiveness of the late 19th–early 20th century critics, Anne still had supporters in literary circles. Esther Alice Chadwick, while believing that Anne lacked "the fire and passion of her sisters" and was "inferior" to them, claimed that she is still "a character well worth studying." Chadwick also considered "The Tenant" to be "probably the first temperance novel." George Moore, an Anglo-Irish writer, was an admirer Anne Brontë's novels; he believed that Anne "had all the qualities of Jane Austen and other qualities," that "she could write with heat," and if "she had lived ten years longer she would
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Frederick, sister and brother, who spent all their childhood apart and reunited only as adults, is foregrounded to domestic reform – Frederick's virtue compensates for their father's neglect of Helen, and their comfortable relationship, defined by mutual respect and understanding, contrasts with Helen's problematic relationship with her husband and her suitor. In the third chapter "The Tenant" changes tone to the novel of ideas. In a powerfully argued Miltonic debate about virtue, experience, choice and temptation, Helen challenges the segregated education of the two sexes, with its over-exposure for boys and over-protection for girls. The novel’s critique of libertine men