The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and its power of pleasing must be regarded, as well as its mere capabilities of force or effect. It is not only the subject of this novel, however, that is objectionable, but the manner of treating it. There is a coarseness of tone throughout the writing of all these Bells [Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë], that puts an offensive subject in its worst point of view, and which generally contrives to dash indifferent things". A critic in "Athenaeum", probably H. F. Chorley, cited "The Tenant" as "the most entertaining novel we have read in a month past". However, he warned
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and was echoed in Brontë's adult works. The characteristics of Arthur Huntington and Annabella Wilmot, both self-indulgent sexual transgressors, may be relics of Gondal, where most of the main heroes were extravagant and led adventurous lives. Four houses in the younger Brontës' novels have "W. H." initials: Wellwood House in "Agnes Grey", the eponymous mansion in "Wuthering Heights", and Wildfell Hall and Woodford Hall in "The Tenant". "Ur-hall" in Gondal may be the source of inspiration for at least two of them — Wuthering Heights and Wildfell Hall. Citing all this, Davies concludes that Charlotte's statement that Anne "hated her