THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, Anne Bronte

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometime violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntington, 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 Bronte'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 Bronte style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned Anne a position in English literature in her own right, not just as the youngest mamber of the Bronte family.