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
Helen Graham (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) her father, unwilling to take any care of a girl, sends Helen to her aunt, Mrs. Peggy Maxwell, at Staningley Hall. At the age of eighteen Helen enters her first season, where she meets witty and handsome Arthur Huntingdon. She falls in love with him and eventually marries him, in spite of all his faults and strong disapproval of her aunt. Helen is firmly convinced that she can reform Arthur with gentle persuasion and good example. One year after their marriage Helen gives birth to their son, also named Arthur, often referred to in the novel as Little Arthur. Huntingdon,