The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and its power of pleasing must be regarded, as well as its mere capabilities of force or effect. It is not only the subject of this novel, however, that is objectionable, but the manner of treating it. There is a coarseness of tone throughout the writing of all these Bells [Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë], that puts an offensive subject in its worst point of view, and which generally contrives to dash indifferent things". A critic in "Athenaeum", probably H. F. Chorley, cited "The Tenant" as "the most entertaining novel we have read in a month past". However, he warned
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall adherence to the diaries may be considered as a 'testimony of experience'. Since the Renaissance writing a diary had been a popular form of documenting and expressing personal opinions. Naomi Jacobs argues that "the displacement [of framing narration by the inner] is exactly the point of the novel, which subjects its readers to a shouldering-aside of familiar notions and comfortable perceptions of the world", and both narrations and jarring discrepancies of tone and perspective between them are essential to the purpose. In "The Tenant", like in "Wuthering Heights", a horrific reality of private life is obtained after passing through the