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 apparent to any one who gives the subject a moment's consideration; and it becomes scarcely necessary, in order to convince our readers of the madness of trusting to such a forced distortion of the Divine attribute of mercy, to add that this doctrine is alike repugnant to Scripture, and in direct opposition to the teaching of the Anglican Church". "Rambler", arguing that "Jane Eyre" and "The Tenant" were written by the same person, stated that the latter is "not so bad a book as "Jane Eyre"", which it believed to be "one of the coarsest of the book we ever