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 brother Branwell Brontë biography. Du Maurier praised the narrative structure, "two separate stories most cleverly combined in one," and believed Gilbert Markham "with his utter confidence in his powers of attracting the opposite sex" to be modelled on Branwell. Presuming that he was familiar with his sisters' novels, du Maurier believed that the story of Helen's marital live with Arthur Huntingdon may have been "a warning to Branwell" and the relationship between "erring, neglectful husband" and "the pious, praying wife" resembles Branwell's views on the marriage of Lydia Robinson, the woman, at whose house he was employed as a tutor