The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in nineteenth-century literature." However, some forty years later, in introduction to "The Essence of the Brontës", Spark radically changed her views on Anne: "I do not now agree with my former opinion on Anne Brontë's value as a writer. I think her works are not good enough to be considered in any serious context of the nineteenth century novel or that there exists any literary basis for comparison with the brilliant creative works of Charlotte and Emily... She was a writer who could 'pen' a story well enough; she was a literary equivalent of a decent water-colourist." Only in the
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall which to take a comprehensive view of humanity and the novelist who confines his observation to them is not likely to produce any lasting impression except of horror and disgust". "Sharpe's London Magazine", believing "despite reports to the contrary" that "[no] woman could have written such a work", warned its readers, especially ladies, against reading "The Tenant". While acknowledging "the powerful interest of the story", "the talent with which it is written" and an "excellent moral", it argued that "like the fatal melody of the Syren's song, its very perfections render it more dangerous, and therefore more carefully to be