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Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Bronte Sisters

Summary

Anne Brontë was the youngest of the sister writers, and was closest to Emily with whom she invented the imaginary world of Gondal, the setting for many of their best poems. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second of her novels (after Agnes Grey ) and was published a year before her death, in 1848. Anne was by nature and (Wesleyan) influence a girl of religious melancholy and something of this temperament surfaces in this novel's morbid bleakness. Wildfell Hall is narrated by a young farmer, Gilbert Markham, and the story initially focuses upon his love for Helen Graham. Helen is a widow, though still young, and has only recently arrived in the vicinity with her son Arthur. Gilbert discredits local gossip that begins about Helen, the new tenant, and her landlord Lawrence due to their friendship but subsequently hears the two talking intimately and beats Lawrence uncompromisingly. Only then does the truth emerge of Helen's past and her relationship with the landlord. An inspiration for Huntingdon, a wasted talent and drunkard, is said to have been Anne's brother Branwell. The novel was, like Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights , criticised for its dark perspective when published.

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