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 and attributes to that the relative marginalization of the novel in the Brontë sisters' oeuvre. According to O’Toole, Anne, unlike her elder sisters, seems to juxtapose rather than to collapse kinship and sexual relations. The relationship between Frederick and Helen is insular and cannot solve all the problems or contradictions that cluster around the concept of the domestic. Helen's retreat from her husband is followed by a return to her natal family origins, symbolized by her return to the home in which she was born, and adoption of her mother’s maiden name as her alias. The relationship between Helen and