The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

An imprudent and bitterly unhappy marriage, followed by the wife's departure and determined bid for freedom. Set in the rakish Regency society and written during the 1840s when the oppression of women was at its height, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is extraordinary for its impassioned and bold treatment of the issue of women's equality. 'The slamming of Helen's bedroom door against her husband,' wrote one critic, 'reverberated throughout Victorian England.' In short, Wildfell Hall can be said to be the first sustained feminist novel. Much of Anne Brontë's painful experience acquired while she was governess is imprinted on the action of the novel. Nevertheless, the story of Helen Huntingdon and her swaggering, debauched husband and of Gilbert Markham, the man who falls in love with Helen, is notable for its honesty, psychological truth and burning sincerity--and for its startling modernity. The cover shows a detail from 'Knostrop Hall, Moonlight' by John Atkinson Grimshaw, in a private collection (photo: Rodney Todd-White)