Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Wordsworth Classics) by Anne Bronte (1999) Paperback

The music in this item is awesome. It is calming especially when driving. As you listen you can reread the book in your mind. The book is better than the film though the film was also excellent. I am glad I bought this CD.

I was prompted to read the Tenant of Windfell Hall by an article claiming that the neglected Anne Brontë might, in fact, be the best of the three Brontë sisters. If packing a feminist punch and having the courage to examine a difficult subject without blinking is the yardstick by which a writer is judged, then Anne Brontë is certainly right up there. She provides a compelling account of the situation of a woman locked in a toxic marriage and who defies law and social convention, albeit in a very moral way, to protect herself and her son from the depradations of her depraved husband. In its strong moral dimension the work provides an interesting antithesis to the amoral Wuthering Heights. For all the merits of the work, which is a gripping story well enough told, characterization is very uneven. In the instance of the male narrator, who is also a major protagonist, it is barely convincing. While the heroine and her toxic husband are better drawn, they come dangerously close to being ciphers, the one of villainy and the other of moral uprightness. Anne Brontë works in black and white rather than shades of grey. Much as I enjoyed the novel, I found none of the explosive out of the box genius of Emily or psychological finesse of Charlotte. If Anne Brontë has been relatively neglected compared with her more celebrated sisters, it is for good reason.

Wow, this story was by turns depressing, dramatic, gripping, and almost too vivid and realistic. I think it would make anyone think twice before considering marriage, or being careless with alcohol.
The story dwelt very heavily on the theme of short term pleasures vs. lasting rewards of virtue. However, repentance and God's mercy were also shown in the story.

***** Minor Spoiler alert****

There is a compelling plea for a dying man to choose life through Jesus over separation and pain. And although Anne Bronte (or her characters at least) seems to have believed in purgatory, still there is a sense of finality to the way her characters choose to act and believe in this life. It's interesting especially in light of the author's own life and early death. I think, based on this story, that she really had seen the vanity of friendship with the world, and was prepared to meet her Maker.

Young Helen Lawrence had just come out into society, and unfortunately two of her beaus, older men who, although settled, of good character and wealthy, didn't meet her romantic standards. I can't say that I blame the talented, attractive young woman. I was not particularly turned-on by either of the men, myself. Middle-aged, stodgy and tiresome, they were not the answer to an eighteen year-old's dreams - even a practical eighteen year-old. A third suitor, Arthur Huntington, handsome, charismatic, and known by some to be "destitute of principle and prone to vice," was obviously smitten by Helen, and she was drawn to him also. Her aunt emphasized that the young woman should, above all, look for character in a potential mate. She advised her niece to seek a man of principle, good sense, respectability and moderate wealth. She warned Helen away from Huntington, calling him a reprobate. Helen agreed that she should marry such a one whose character her aunt would approve of, but also argued that love should play a part in her selection. Meanwhile, Huntington, on his best behavior, continued to woo Helen until she finally accepted his proposal, on the condition of her relatives' approval. Helen knew that Arthur was somewhat deficient in sense, scruples and conduct. However, she also truly believed that with her own strong religious convictions and love, she could and would change him for the good. In spite of numerous examples of her beloved's past lechery and excesses, Helen insisted on the match. And so they married.

Within a few months Helen became much more familiar with her husband's character. He had no hobbies nor interests, as she did. She is a gifted painter, loves to read, enjoys the outdoors, and is not easily bored. Arthur demanded all Helen's time and attention, to entertain and pamper him. When he could no longer bear the country solitude, he left for London, to reacquaint himself with his old haunts and bachelor friends. He insisted his wife remain behind, at their estate, Grassdale Manor. Huntington's behavior worsened with time, even after Helen bore him a beautiful son. He brought his debauched friends into his home for months on end, hosting wild drinking orgies and participating in a variety of low behavior extremely insulting to his wife, indeed, even encouraging his friends to mock his spouse. Helen eventually discovered that one of the houseguests, the wife of a friend, was Arthur's longtime mistress. Thus a double adultery was being conducted at Grassdale Manor, while she and her son were in residence, along with excesses of every kind.

It was at this point that Helen, contrary to the customs of her times, locked her bedroom door against her husband. This seems like logical behavior in the 21st century. And many might ask why she did not leave Huntington long before. In the Victorian Age, the law and society defined a married woman as a husband's property. Women were totally dependant upon their mates, and husbands could actually have their wives locked away in asylums at their whim and convenience. There is a scene in the novel where Arthur has all Helen's paints and canvasses destroyed, and takes possession of her jewelry and money, so she cannot leave him. When the profligate begins to manipulate his young son, encouraging the child to drink and curse his mother, Helen does run away with her child.

As the novel opens, we find her living in a few rooms at the remote Wildfell Hall, under the assumed identity of Helen Graham, a widow. Here she earns her living by painting. The neighbors are curious and seek her out, one in particular, Gilbert Markham. However when Helen is not forthcoming about her past, she becomes the object of ugly gossip and jealousy. Much of this compelling story is narrated through a series of letters Markham writes to a friend, and through Helen's own diary entries.

The novel is divided into three sections: Helen's life at Wildfell Hall and her friendship with Gilbert Markham; Helen's diary describing the Huntington marriage; and the events following Markham's reading the diary. Anne Bronte's novel is powerful, haunting and quite disturbing. Miss Bronte, and her brother Branwell, served as governess and tutor to the children of wealthy aristocrats. Some of the behavior described here is apparently taken from events which Anne witnessed, and which marked Branwell severely. Ms. Bronte openly stated that in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" she, "wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it." This well written, extraordinary tale can most definitely hold its own against the works of Anne's more famous sisters, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, and those of other noted authors of the period.
JANA

I really enjoyed this story! The characters are very well developed and complex. Some refer to this book as Anne Bronte's best or better novel in comparison to Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey. It is certainly an amazing story, but just as much as Agnes Grey; Except, on a different level. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is more dark, suspenseful, and thought-provoking. While Agnes Grey, on the other hand, is a more light-hearted read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that enjoys books like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, or Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.

Anne Bronte's novel "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" exposes the extreme double standard that existed between men and women in England during the mid nineteenth century. The evil male in the story and a few of his associates are easy to dislike whether the reader be male or female, but what is refreshing about the novel is that several men are reported as decent, loving and hard working individuals who help restore our faith in the male gender before the book ends. Helen, the heroin in the story, is portrayed as almost a saint like figure who few of us, male or female, could readily identify because of the abuse for which she allows herself to be subjected by her husband and the continued attempts by her to love and forgive him in spite of himself. But, for someone who wishes to see the ultimate examples of Christ-like behavior, this is the book to read.

"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is wonderful. I had a real sympathy for the characters, all of which were well-drawn; I felt that they could all be real people. I even liked "The Tenant" better than "Jane Eyre", which I realize is probably more popular. I don't want to give anything away, but trust me on this and read "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall".

Finally read Anne Bronte, great read. Very brave of Anne to speak straight forward about abusive marriages and no rights for the married women. The print of this publication is very poor. It appears to be scanned version therefore leaving many errors. It is not printed in a normal published version. I was very unhappy is was not the complete original works, meaning the first page is not accurate. Very disappointed in the publication. Will not be good enough to add to my home library. I will have to search for a better version. Although I will read her first novel and poems to fully appreciate her talents.

How to review the incomparable Brontes? If you are seeking a Bronte novel which will stand the test of Wuthering Heights (Jane Eyre is second, let's admit), read this. Anne tackles the morality of whether a man who is presumably engaged to another woman should be permitted to fall in love with a married neighbor who is estranged from her husband. In the usual Bronte persuasive fashion, the reader despises the superficial judgments immediately placed by society upon the married female despite her actions for good. This writing also achieves an excellent contrast between the drawing-room picture presented by other authors of the same period versus the reality acknowledged by those with deeper emotions, intellect, capacity, and insight. An easier read than WH, and shorter than JE, but worth an introspective afternoon or two.

An interesting study of man-woman relationships--a bit overly melodramatic--but, for the times, a breakthrough indictment of the oppressive patriarchal system of England in the 1820-1840 period. The angelic nature of Helen is a bit overdone and unrealistic. However, having an indomitable sense of morality is something our culture could use more of. That the methods of raising males in those days produced selfish, pleasure-seeking, wastrels is not unique to that period of history. We in our day have a culture that can and does even more damage to the raising of our young--both male and female: for example, via the permissiveness of drugs, alcohol, sex, idol-worship. We could use a little more of the religious sensitivities of Helen.

The reader cannot help but come to love Helen and Gilbert. The world set before their love so many snares and pitfalls. I enjoyed the characters and the format of letters to Gilbert's brother-in-law. I usually don't like correspondent format, however I felt like the letters were addressed to me and I became Gilbert's confidant in his heartache and struggles.

In some ways, it's surprising that both this Bronte novel and sister are not as well known as the Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Charlote and Emily Bronte respectively. Social issues, including martial breakdown, alcoholism, adultery, divorce, women's rights, child custody,and comparison of Protestant sects such as Calvinism versus Universalism, are boldly confronted. Excellent character and setting development throughout the story provide another strong part to the story. This Oxford edition's note section also enhances understanding of the 1820-1840 era, with fascinating tidbits such as the new German dance, the waltz, was then viewed as amoral, while homemade ale was considered virtuous. One wonders how much is based on various actions of several Bronte family members. These components make The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a very worthwhile read. The only shortcoming is the long drawn portion near the end--very repetitous and tedious for about a 100 pages; otherwise this would be a 5 star novel.

THIS IS NOT THE ACTUAL BOOK. NOWHERE ON THE DETAILS OF THIS ITEM DOES IT SAY THAT THIS BOOK IS A "SUMMARY" OF THE ACTUAL NOVEL. I JUST WENT TO GO READ THIS BOOK FOR A CLASS AND I REALIZED THAT IT IS NOT THE ACTUAL BOOK. I HAD TO RE ORDER ANOTHER BOOK AND I AM OUT OF THE RETURN WINDOW. IM PRETTY ANNOYED BECAUSE THIS SHOULD BE STATED ON THE ITEM DETAILS. I AM SHOCKED BECAUSE USUALLY the store IS ON POINT. I WANT MY $6 BACK

Extraordinary writing. A fine book, great character development, a real period piece. Would recommend for history sake. Although her Agnes Grey was much better and I would highly recommend that book.

Anne Bronte, the 3rd Bronte sister, lived a sequestered life and the novel shows both her quiet life and her longing for more. Only readers with a penchant for lengthy 19th century British novels will enjoy this one, with its rather long passages on what it means to be a good person. I find it a haunting but excellent novel.

The endless self-righteous moralizing of the heroine left me sympathizing with her husband, the nominal villain. And her tolerance of his bad behaviour made me doubt her intelligence. This is a textbook for women who wish to be abused. Overall well-written, but tedious.

Although the writing must be recognized as excellent; there was so much accounting of each and every detail that it was wearying to listen to. I stuck through it because I never (hardly) give up on a book but I did not enjoy it. the reader was superb in her task but her skill could not make the book more entertaining.

I was initially intrigued by reading something by Anne Bronte. Tedious beyond belief. I had to skip over many parts because I simply couldn't read through it. I was amazed to read that it was very well received at the time of the writing. It was a good story; it just overdid the details.

Review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Hot Toasty Rag, May 23, 2017

Although written in 1848, most of the time, this novel feels like it was written recently. Sure, if written today, there would be added sex and less sophisticated language, but the basic plot of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is incredibly imaginative, suspenseful, and entertaining, even for modern audiences.

A woman and her son move to a small town, and despite the community’s attempts to get to know her, she maintains an unusually high level of privacy. One man’s curiosity—and perhaps more—draws him closer to the mysterious tenant of Wildfell Hall. The first third of the novel is told from this man’s perspective, but when the titular character provides him with her diary, the readers are taken back in time to her youth. Every question the town, and the readers, held about the mysterious tenant is answered through her diary, the second third of Anne Bronte’s novel. What happened in her past, what drove her away, and what demons still haunt her at Wildfell Hall? Find out by reading this overlooked novel and gem from one of the Bronte sisters. Some Victorian novels have a reputation of being boring or obsolete; this definitely is not one of them.

I’m slightly shame-faced to say that until this year I had never read either of the two books written by the youngest Brontë sister, Anne, despite being an Eng Lit graduate, with a fairly sound lifetime reading of classics habit.

I had accepted, without exploring for myself, the generally expressed opinion that she was a lesser writer than her two more celebrated sisters.

And then I read Samantha Ellis’s wonderful biography Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life. I very much admire Ellis’ writing, so the fact she was so warmly championing Anne meant I was going to rectify my ignorance of her writing. I had also been aware that she has very much been taken up by feminist readers and writers, as having a far less ‘romantic’ viewpoint, and engaging with far more realism, and, indeed, one could say political (left leaning) politics.

At the time, her writing, particularly The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was, on its first printing both popular and horrifyingly shocking, unmasking as it did, alcoholism, sexual abuse within marriage, adultery – and having a strong female character who takes the choice to break free of the despotism of her husband. This was Victorian upper middle class society, and marriage as commercial transaction, laid bare. Much of the filthy linen in society given a very thorough public washing.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published in 1848. It wasn’t until 1870 that the Married Womens’ Property Act gave women the right to own any property of her own – whether through the wages from her own work, or from inheritance. Before that time (and therefore at the time of this novel) marriage conferred ownership of the woman herself, and all her material assets, to her husband. Make a bad marriage, and there was little chance of escape, or to live independently. If a woman chose to leave an abusive marriage, without the right to take back control of any property which she had inherited, or to her own wages, if she could work, there was no way to support her children. Single women and widows had rights which married women had forfeited

The central character in the book, Helen Graham, makes an imprudent marriage, and finds herself having to find a way to disappear for her own safety and the moral safety of her son. More than this, Helen is strong, intelligent, and finds she is able to make her own way as an artist. In many ways, she is a kind of forerunner and beacon, in fiction, for the kind of women Virginia Woolf was writing about and making clarion calls for in A Room of One’s Own

I found Wildfell Hall, in terms of its subject matter, marvellous, and yes, in many ways Anne’s creation seemed to speak in a far more profoundly and tellingly modern way than Emily or Charlotte’s. But – though the subject matter itself makes me completely understand why she has been rediscovered by feminists, I did find myself in agreement, still, with that judgement of her being a less writer than her sisters. She is far more polemical, and Helen at times is remarkably priggish, spouting page after page of extremely fine philosophical diatribe. The structure of the novel is also, perhaps, a less happy one. A large part of the book is a recounting, several years after the events of the novel, by one of the central characters in the book, Gilbert Markham. This is done in the form of letters written by Markham to a close friend. The letters never, to me, seemed the kind of thing a man would write to another man, as there was far too much detail about upholstery, clothing, and the like. It would have been a far better decision to have told the story in the third person. Markham also assiduously copies out vast tracts of Helen’s journals in his letters to his friend. Which not only seems rather unethical, but, again, is not quite credible. Without wanting to reveal spoilers, there is also a rather incredible decision taken by the author, to keep information hidden from Gilbert Markham which leads to incidents of high dramatic misunderstanding. A simple revelation would have been what reality should have demanded.

So……….for the importance of Anne’s book, what she is writing about, and when, I absolutely admired it. She is, I think a writer of social realism, and also, despite the shock felt by some contemporaries that what she was writing about was degraded and horrible – an intensely moral one. The degradation and horror were that what she wrote about was real. She was assuredly not a romantic novelist.

Here is Anne, with Helen as her mouthpiece, talking about a disparity she regards as flawed, between the moral education of daughters and the moral education of sons:

“You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by te experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-relaince, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself”

Although on publication the book was popular with readers, the establishment view was not so favourable, with some contemporary literary critics bemoaning the ‘coarseness’ of the writing and subject matter. For example, Charles Kingsley author of The Water Babies, criticised the book thus:

“It is, taken altogether, a powerful and an interesting book. Not that it is a pleasant book to read, nor, as we fancy, has it been a pleasant book to write; still less has it been a pleasant training which could teach an author such awful facts, or give courage to write them. The fault of the book is coarseness--not merely that coarseness of subject which will be the stumbling-block of most readers, and which makes it utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls..."

As contrast, here is what Anne herself wrote, in the preface to the second edition, as a rebuttal to criticisms

“When we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light, is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers?”

A powerful read, even though, in my opinion, it is not quite so satisfying purely in its literary merits.

Anne Bronte’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ is structured like a sandwich. The meat of the sandwich is a diary written by a woman, Helen Graham formerly Huntington formerly Lawrence, who analyzes and evaluates objectively her youthful folly, how she made one disastrous marital choice and descended into an endless nightmare of servitude, and how she continues to struggle for survival and the chance for a peaceful, serene life for her and that of her young son. The bread of the sandwich is an opening and concluding narrative, consisting of letters from a farmer, Gilbert Markham, to his friend depicting his infatuation with Helen, the mysterious ‘widow’ tenant of nearby Wildfell Hall.

Reading Helen’s account, we can understand exactly why she chose such a horrible husband, knowing of his weaknesses but charmed by his handsome and seductive demeanor and convinced that she had the power to be a stabilizing influence on him. Considering that the only other options she had for prospective marital partners were middle aged, boring, unattractive men whose only point in their favor was affluence, the choice of Arthur Huntingdon seems like a good idea at the time. At the age of eighteen, Helen possesses a similar degree of discernment and wisdom of choice as many of her age. Also, like many other young people, the more something is disapproved, the more attractive the option appears and the more determined she is to make the unwise choice, if for no other reason than her aunt does not want her to make it.

The debauchery with his rogue buddies that Huntingdon pursued with more circumspection while courting Helen are unleashed in full force once they are married, especially after Helen is pregnant and more limited in her mobility, including a blatant affair with the wife of one of their frequent visitors. The existence of a child magnifies the desperation of miserable bondage to a horrible husband. The wife can no longer be responsible just for her own freedom; the well-being of the child is now a priority. Huntingdon is fully aware of this fact and uses it as leverage in controlling his wife.

The difference for Helen, and the primary one that sets this novel apart from every other fictional depiction of a disastrous marriage in 19th century Britain, is that she actually acts on her impulse to leave. Most of us have tolerated bad situations far longer than we probably should have for our own well-being, mostly because the known quantity is less frightening than the unknown quantity of potentially ominous alternatives. When the pain in staying in one of these situations outweighs the pain and risk of leaving, we usually leave. Helen has gone far beyond that point.
Seeking refuge though her brother’s intervention, Helen lives as his tenant as a widow. Is she finally safe and out of the reach of her husband? Not necessarily, but it is the best option available. Leaving with very little money (Huntingdon seized all he could lay his hands on when he learned of her plans to leave him) forces her to attempt to earn her living as a painter, setting her even farther apart from most of the women of the time. Understandably, she lives a very secluded existence in her new location and arouses the curiosity of the townspeople, who are prone to gossip, rumor and speculation.

This brings us back to the bread in our Wildfell sandwich—Gilbert Markham. Although I believe Anne Bronte would like us to accept him as noble and generous, he is as nosy and liable to subscribe to the rumor mills as his neighbors, even if his romantic interest in Helen leads him to fall on the side of negating the rumors. He is just as boorishly nosy as the rest of the population in the village. He also possesses an arrogance that lends him a sense of entitlement, simply because his love for Helen is so ardent that he attacks her brother, thinking him a romantic rival, and forces himself into the presence of the brother, Helen and anyplace else where he is heedless of all considerations other than his needs. He differs from the men with whom Helen has previously been acquainted only in degree. While Helen was enduring her own hell as Arthur Huntingdon’s cuckolded wife, she was besieged by a predator, one of Huntingdon’s less overtly corrupt friends whose attempts at seduction were masked by the guise of her deliverer, forcing her to physically resist his advances. Markham is younger and more attractive than the previous suitor but, to my mind, he is just as insensitive to Helen’s needs for solace and solitude and congratulates himself for his forbearance and patience in honoring his agreement to give her six months to consider what her next step will be.

All three of the Bronte sisters wrote what I call anti-Jane Austen novels. Marital unions in these novels, even when they are not as disastrous as Helen’s and Huntingdon’s, are usually hard won and not without immense obstacles. ‘Wildfell Hall’ presents a prime example of how fraught with risk and disaster marriage in this world could really be. Although the ‘happy ever after’ union at the end of the novel is not quite as sugary as many happy endings, it provides little consolation for this reader. I would hope that Gilbert Markham would evolve somewhat and sincerely think of others’ needs as well as his own and yet the concluding pages of the novel, written some 20 years after the beginning of the story for him, bear marks of just as much self-absorption as his earlier letters.

Helen differs from later 19th century heroines such as Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, who never leaves her unloving husband Casaubon and is free only upon his death, or Isabel Archer in Henry James’ ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ who chooses to stay with her spousal monster Gilbert Osmond, primarily because she wants to provide a moral influence on his daughter Pansy. Ultimately, Helen is also not delivered from tyranny until after the husband’s death and so she returns to nurse him in his illness, fulfilling her legal, as well as moral, duty. While many modern readers reach the simple conclusion that she should just leave the bastard, they fail to take into account that the liberty of a woman to leave an abusive husband is relatively new and was not a viable option until the last few decades of the 20th century. Helen, like virtually every other married woman in the 19th century, was the property of her husband. A woman who left her husband was only a few rungs higher on the social ladder than a runaway slave.

Anne is the most underrated of the Bronte sisters, the one standing in the massive shadows cast by Emily and Charlotte. Her audacity in writing ‘Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ mirrored her character Helen’s in leaving her husband and possibly even shocked her sister Charlotte, who authorized no subsequent reprinting of the novel after Anne’s death. ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ is not a masterpiece on the level of ‘Jane Eyre’ or ‘Wuthering Heights’. The sentence structure is simpler and more direct. Although it is well-written, it has a less polished and assured construction than either of those novels. On the other hand, it is just as bold and revolutionary in its assertion of a woman’s right to determine her fate. Little sister Anne, far from being the meek, sweet-natured baby of the family, passionately defended her novel against its detractors in the preface to the second edition and wrote a credo that does honor to any author who seeks to maintain the integrity of her work and creative choices:
‘Such humble talents as God has given me I will endeavor to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse, I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it is my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I WILL speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.’

Anne is the “other Brontë sister” in that she was the one who did not write either “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights”; neither of her own two novels has achieved quite the same classic status. They were, however, very popular when first published, although “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” was regarded as particularly controversial, even shocking, because of its treatment of the theme of marital infidelity and its advocacy of women’s rights. After Anne’s death her sister Charlotte prevented it from being republished, although her motives for doing so remain obscure.

In the twentieth century it was often said that the archetypal English novel was a study of adultery in Hampstead, but during the first half of the nineteenth this was not the case. In the works of Jane Austen, for example, marriage is generally seen as the goal towards which the principal characters are striving; we are not told what happens to them after their wedding day but are led to assume it is along the lines of “they lived happily ever after”. Austen did, of course, acknowledge that not all marriages are happy, but the unhappy ones do not form the main focus of her work; in “Mansfield Park” the emphasis is on the progress of the love of Fanny and Edmund, not the failing marriage of Maria and Mr Rushworth. Similarly, Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” concentrates far more on the title character than it does on analysing the doomed relationship between Rochester and his first wife Bertha.

“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is different in that the unhappy marriage of Helen and Arthur Huntingdon is at the centre of the action. The action is set in the 1820s, some twenty years before the novel was written. Helen first meets Arthur when she is a teenager of eighteen and he a country gentleman some ten years older. Besotted with his good looks and charm she falls in love and resolves to marry him. She is aware that he has a reputation of being something of a rake and a heavy drinker, and that he lacks any firm moral principles, but is naïve enough to imagine that she can reform him. Of course, she fails miserably in this task and Arthur proves to a cold, unloving husband, neglecting Helen in favour of drunken debauches with a small group of like-minded cronies. He also proves unfaithful, conducting affairs with at least two other women, one of them married. Eventually Helen realises that Arthur is an incorrigible rogue and that all her efforts to persuade him to reform have been, and will continue to be, in vain. She therefore considers taking what in the early 19th century would have been a virtually unthinkable step, that of leaving him. Her main motive is to protect her young son, fearing that if she remains he will grow up to be as bad a man as his father.

Arthur has been seen as a disguised portrait of Anne's brother Branwell, also an alcoholic, but as the Brontёs’ biographer Winifred Gérin points out this is perhaps unfair to Branwell who had his faults but also had his good points in which Arthur seems lacking. Branwell, a painter and a poet, was deeply artistic; Arthur is equally deeply Philistine. Branwell’s downfall was in part due to an unhappy love affair, but Arthur is incapable of loving anyone other than himself; he does not seem to have any more genuine affection for his mistresses than for his wife. He can be seen as Anne Brontё’s critique of the cult of the mean, moody and magnificent Byronic hero which had gripped so many British and European writers during this period. This includes Anne’s sisters Charlotte and Emily; their creations Rochester and Heathcliffe are classically Byronic figures. Arthur superficially seems like another such, but is soon revealed as a worthless fellow, mean and moody but far from magnificent. Childe Harold and Don Juan have been reduced to the level of a drunken, lecherous country squire. (I wonder if Charlotte’s dislike of the novel arose from resentment of what she perceived as an implied critique of her own work; Arthur can be seen as Edward Rochester gone to the bad, without his redeeming qualities).

Another important theme is what today would be called feminism. The story of Helen’s disastrous marriage emphasised how at this period married women were almost completely dependent upon their husbands and denied equal rights; they were not, for example, permitted to own property. Anything the wife brought to the marriage became the property of her husband. By leaving her husband, Helen was not only guilty of the matrimonial offence of desertion, but was also breaching social convention which insisted that a wife’s place should be by her husband’s side, no matter how badly he might have treated her. The writer May Sinclair was later to say that the slamming of Helen's bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England. Helen is not always the most satisfactory heroine- she can sometimes come across as humourless and excessively pious- but in her determination and independent spirit she can seem a very modern figure. A third major theme is that of religion. Helen reflects her creator’s devout Christian views, especially her belief in “universalism”, the view that God’s mercy is infinite and therefore available even to unbelievers and unrepentant sinners.

The novel has its faults, notably its over-elaborate structure, something it shares with “Wuthering Heights”. (The structure of “Jane Eyre” is much simpler). It is framed as a series of letters from one Gilbert Markham to a friend, and the first section deals with how Markham, a young Yorkshire farmer, meets, and falls in love with, Helen, wrongly believing her to be a widow. (The title refers to the old house where Helen is living at this period). The second, and longest, section of the novel is told in the form of Helen’s journal, which she has shown to Markham and which details her life with Arthur. The third, also narrated by Markham, continues the story and tells what eventually becomes of Helen, Arthur and himself. This structure struck me as excessively complex, and I felt that the story would have benefitted from being told in a more straightforward way.

The dialogue is occasionally unrealistic; Helen, in particular, is given to making long, formal speeches that make her sound like a “Church Times” editorial than a young woman in her teens or twenties. The characterisation, however, is generally good. Arthur is a memorable figure and one whom we might find it easier to pity today than would have been the case for readers in 1848, now that widely alcoholism is recognised as an illness rather than a mere character defect. Arthur’s companions- the depressive, introspective Lowborough, the blunt man-of-the-world Hattersley, the depraved Grimsby and the hypocritical Hargrave who professes friendship for Arthur while attempting to cuckold him by making unwanted attempts to seduce Helen- are neatly differentiated. (It should be noted that Arthur is equally hypocritical- one of his lovers is the wife of his supposed friend Lowborough). Gilbert is a complex figure; he can be impulsive and unreasonably jealous, but also capable of sincere love.

For all its flaws, the novel is a masterpiece. Anne Brontë took what in her day was a neglected theme- marital betrayal- and sets it within a complex moral framework informed by her own religious beliefs. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” does not have quite the same imaginative power as “Jane Eyre” but it certainly shows that is author was something more than the “other Brontë”.