The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Austen's style, but "with less of that particular quality which her dialogues invariably possessed". Considering the novels structure as "faulty", "Examiner" concludes that "it is scarcely possible to analyze [the novel]". An American magazine "Literature World", believing all the novels by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell were produced by the same person, praised their author as a genius, who can make "his incongruities appear natural". Noting, that "all that is good or attractive about [the male characters in "The Tenant"] is or might be womanish" it supposes that the author may be "some gifted and retired woman". Despite considering "The
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall father’s farm, and Helen, being a runaway wife, can call neither her home nor her name her own. The emphasis on allusions in the novel, on using the "language of others," according to McDonagh, may be a reflection on the position of being a tenant, which in its subjugation is similar to that of being a wife. Until the passing of the Married Women's Property Act in 1870 a wife had no independent existence under English law, and therefore no right to own property or to enter into contracts separately from her husband, or to sue for divorce, or for