The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall

The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall is a strong-minded woman who keeps her own counsel. Helen 'Graham' - exiled w... (more)

The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall is a strong-minded woman who keeps her own counsel. Helen 'Graham' - exiled with her child to the desolate moorland mansion, adopting an assumed name and earning her living as a painter - has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage. Narrated by her neighbour Gilbert Markham, and in the pages of her own diary, the novel portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when the law and society defined a married woman as her husband's property. (less)

The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall is a strong-minded woman who keeps her own counsel. Helen 'Graham' - exiled w... (more)

The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall is a strong-minded woman who keeps her own counsel. Helen 'Graham' - exiled with her child to the desolate moorland mansion, adopting an assumed name and earning her living as a painter - has returned to Wildfell Hall in flight from a disastrous marriage. Narrated by her neighbour Gilbert Markham, and in the pages of her own diary, the novel portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when the law and society defined a married woman as her husband's property. (less)

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Anne, like her sisters Emily and Charlotte, published under a male pseudonym, Acton Bell. Yet still this novel was scorn... (more)

Anne, like her sisters Emily and Charlotte, published under a male pseudonym, Acton Bell. Yet still this novel was scorned by many for its exposure of the abusive male chauvinism concealed, like all things sexual, during the Victorian Era. Just as she had to use a male pseudonym in order to be free to publish, as women authors were not yet deemed acceptable or bankable, Helen Graham, the novel's protagonist, assumes an alias in order to gain freedom from her suffering and take up residence in Wildfell Hall, "the wildest and the loftiest eminence in our neighborhood," according to the tale's narrator. Like her sisters, Anne employs the atmosphere of the bleak Yorkshire moors and the presence of an old mansion to set the stage for a tragedy that reveals the secret violence in a society considered well mannered, echoing the rough, cold, rugged gloom of the fictional Wildfell Hall and her family's own remote parsonage. (less)

The heroine leaves her dissolute husband and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. (more)

The heroine leaves her dissolute husband and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. (less)

When the beautiful widow Helen Graham moves into the derelict Wildfell Hall with her son, she arouses great curiosity fr... (more)

When the beautiful widow Helen Graham moves into the derelict Wildfell Hall with her son, she arouses great curiosity from the local villagers. Gilbert Markham is a handsome young farmer who finds himself drawn to the enigmatic Helen and encourages her to open up to him. But even the sympathetic Markham is unprepared for the secrets Helen will ultimately reveal, secrets which the repressed Victorian society would rather bury forever. (less)