Product Description

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious tenant of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father's influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her. On its first publication in 1848, Anne Brontë's second novel was criticised for being 'coarse' and 'brutal'. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defence of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Brontë's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned her a position in English Literature in her own right.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7851 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant, Christchurch University College.

Customer Reviews

A very under-rated work
Anne Brontë seems to have been overshadowed by her two sisters. Hardly surprising, but this is a great work in itself and should not be ignored. Her sister Charlotte did not like it much, she said it was unworthy of publication - but of course, she said the same about Jane Austen's works (whose style is similar to Anne's).

It traces, with remarkable frankness, the collapse of a woman's marriage to an abusive husband (who is loosely based on Brontë's brother Branwell), and her escape from him. The characters have odd and endearing foibles, and one never loses interest as the book progresses.

An excellant book, well worth the read!
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tells the story of a young woman named Helen who comes to live on the Yorkshire Moors in a semi-derilect house with her young son Arthur and her loyal servant. Once the mistress of a luxurious house, this drastic step is necessitated by a need to rid her son from the corrupting influence of his reckless and almost always intoxicated father, and to escape herself from the humiliation of living with a husband who no longer loves her, and who takes pleasure from flauting his mistresses openly to her.

Assuming a new name and establishing herself as an artist to support herself and her son, Helen finds herself the subject of gossip and mistrust amongst almost all of the local population. Although living in constant fear of discovery by her husband, Helen attempts to make a success of her new life, a life made more bearable by the friendship of local yeoman farmer Gilbert.

But will Helens secret identity be able to remain a secret forever or will her past eventually catch up with her and threaten to destroy her budding romance with Gilbert?

This is an extremely well written book and is rather neglected alongside the successful novels written by her sisters Emily and Charlotte Bronte.

The book contains the passion and drama set around the Moors which you would expect from a Bronte, but it also presents an interesting critique about the place and role of women in 19th century England.

This classic novel is well worth reading.

Surprisingly good
Anne is often classed as the least talented of the Bronte sisters. In this book certainly, she can however hold her head up. She, like her sisters, takes a subject which was considered unacceptable for women to write about and turns it into a fantastically complex and richly rewarding novel.
Here she deals with the subject of alcoholism and its detrimental effects on a family. The knowledge of this is often supposed to come from her own family's dealings with their alcoholic and drug addicted brother, Branwell Bronte, and it is certain that she does have some experience of such issues, wherever they come from, because she writes with a passion and humanity that ring true.
The story is interesting because it deals with what happens to a woman who marries a man who is no good. In Victorian times there were very limited options for women of the middle classes. If they didn't marry they were forced to endure life as either a governess or a dependent of more affluent members of their family. Marriage was the best of a bad bunch, but what to do when that marriage is a living hell and you have few means of escape.
Here, the heroine, Helen, escapes from her rakehell husband for the sake of her young son, and lives a life of isolation in the country. Her burgeoning friendship and love for Gilbert Markham turns her carefully sought sanctuary upside down and puts her in an even more difficult position than previously.
This is realistic, well plotted and is incredibly suspenseful. You feel for the characters and their difficulties. If they follow their natural instincts they will be forced to break away from the society that both cocoons and imprisons them. It is this dilemma which forms the axis of the tension within the book. Great stuff.