The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall has a dark secret. But as the captivated Gilbert Markham will discover, it is not the story circulating among local gossips.

Living under an assumed name, ‘Helen Graham’ is the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence. Her diary entries reveal the shocking world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled.

Combining a sensational story of a man’s physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Brontë’s optimistic belief in universal redemption.

Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Brontë’s novel scandalized contemporary readers. It still retains its power to shock.

Click on the links below to hear Josephine McDonagh, who has written a new introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, introduce the novel.

Introducing the “Cinderella Brontë”

• Anne Brontë died of TB aged 26 shortly after the publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Click here to hear more about her life and the imaginative world she and her siblings -Emily, Charlotte, and Branwell – inhabited. [2:41]
• Anne inscribed the words “Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways” at the back of her prayer book. Does this perhaps hint at her disappointments in love? Click here to find out more. [1:49]

Approaching the novel

• What will readers familiar with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights make of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Click here to hear how Anne approached the themes of marriage, the role of women and masculinity which also preoccupied her sisters. Josephine McDonagh also discusses the ways in which Anne’s brother, Branwell, provided a model for the character of the charming but dissipated Arthur Huntingdon in the novel. [3:03]
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tells the story of a woman who has run away from her abusive, alcoholic husband. Click here to learn how Anne Brontë structures her narrative and why the book has been called “the longest letter in English literature”. [2:51]
• The moral and physical education of Helen’s young son is a central preoccupation of the novel, drawing in as it does the themes of the dangers of alcoholism (to which both Helen’s father and husband had succumbed) and what it means to be a man. Hear more by clicking here . [3:16]

“Vulgar, coarse, and brutal”

• Some contemporary critics condemned the novel for its frank treatment of shocking themes: adultery, alcoholism and marital violence. Even Anne’s sister were less than enthusiastic in their praise for the book, yet many readers found it a thrilling read. Click here to hear more about how the book has been received. [4:03]