‘Bold … shocking.’ – The New York Times
‘Anne might have been the most radical Bronte of all … The Tenant of Wildfell Hall might be one of the first truly feminist novels.’ – Vox
‘The title of ‘the first feminist novel’ has been awarded to other books, perhaps with less justice.’ – The Guardian
When The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published in 1848, critics condemned its portrayal of male violence and alcoholic abuse, recommending that no woman should read it. Anne Bronte was the author, and she saw review after review attacking her novel as too coarse. Crushing it further, her sister Charlotte wrote, ‘at this I cannot wonder, the choice of subject was an entire mistake.’ And yet in recent decades, this work by the youngest Bronte has taken its place alongside those of her sisters as one of the great novels in English, and perhaps the first feminist novel.
Helen is beautiful, talented and eighteen when she meets, fall in love with and marries the handsome but dissolute Arthur Huntingdon against the advice of her family and friends. She soon discovers the real nature of her husband and finally is forced to abandon him to save herself and her child. She becomes the new tenant of Wildfell Hall. Everyone is thrilled to have someone new to talk about, but infuriated by the secrecy that surrounds her. Nasty rumours circulate.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is Anne’s masterpiece, a wildly modern, daring, and provocative book, and one of the first feminist novels – attacking marriage laws, double standard of sexual morality and the education of men and women.
‘The heart of this book is a portrait of a woman surviving and flourishing after abuse, and in that, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall feels unnervingly modern. It is fresh, shocking, and wholly new today, 200 years after the birth of its author.’ – Vox
‘So revolting are many of the scenes, so coarse and disgusting the language put into the mouths of some of the characters, that the reviewer to who we entrusted it to returned it to us … our object here is to warn our readers, and more especially our lady readers, against being induced to peruse it.’ – Sharpe’s London Magazine (1848)
‘Anne might have been the most radical Bronte of all … The Tenant of Wildfell Hall might be one of the first truly feminist novels.’ – Vox
‘Thanks to #Me Too, Anne Bronte’s time is finally here’ – The Sydney Morning Herald
‘Anne’s book was far more radical than anything her more famous sisters ever wrote’ – The Times
‘Fiercely passionate. And wholly revolutionary’ – Telegraph
About the author
Anne Bronte was born in 1820, the youngest of the Bronte family. Her father was curate of Haworth, Yorkshire, and her mother died when she was 20 months old. Anne was educated at home, and then attended boarding school between 1836 and 1837. Between 1839 and 1845, Anne worked as a governess, an experience that inspired her debut novel, Agnes Grey, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, now considered Anne’s masterpiece and one of the first feminist novels, appeared in 1848. It was an immediate success, but following Anne’s death from tuberculosis in 1849, Charlotte suppressed subsequent printings. The novel did not appear again until 1854. She was the youngest of the Bronte sisters, whose extraordinary gifts are only now receiving just appraisal.
