The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to her son, while Anne was governess to her daughters. Du Maurier concluded that in childhood years Branwell "shared in his sister's writings; somehow he must continue to live out their characters in the world of his imagination." In her early essays on Anne Brontë's novels and poetry Muriel Spark praised her proficiency. She believed that Charlotte was a "harsh sister to Anne" and "had she taken an impartial view of "Wildfell Hall", she must have discovered its merits." Despite notion that Charlotte and Emily were "more gifted," Spark stated that "[Anne's] writings none the less take no mean place
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall painfully discordant to one who would fain have sheltered herself from all but peaceful and religious ideas." In his essay on Emily Brontë, Algernon Charles Swinburne briefly mentioned "The Tenant" in the context of Branwell's decline as a novel "which deserves perhaps a little more notice and recognition than it has ever received" and added that "as a study of utterly flaccid and invertebrate immorality it bears signs of more faithful transcription from life than anything in "Jane Eyre" or "Wuthering Heights"." Margaret Oliphant believed that Anne "would have no right to be considered at all as a writer but