The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Somehow I never read this book by that "other Brontë." It does not have dream-like psychological depth of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, but is it a surprisingly modern and feminist portrayal of an intelligent and talented woman, Helen Huntingdon, trapped in a marriage to a dissipated alcoholic. Some contemporary critics thought it "coarse" and unfeminine, and even Anne's sister Charlotte did not approve of it. As a modern reader, I didn't mind the coarseness and dissipation, but was a little put off by Helen's strident religiosity and her cold defensiveness. It didn't keep me from liking the book, though. ( )

I loved The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It is officially my new favorite Brontë novel! ( )

The bad people are all horrible and the pious people are all saintly. No one is even remotely in the grey-area. Mr Hargrave seems to get a bit of a personality transplant halfway through. Helen is almost insufferable. Her aunt gets proved right, despite having a despicable (even for the time) attitude towards her niece. Anne can't pull off the pious heroine in the same way that Charlotte did in Villette, she just makes her horrendous. And who the fuck is Gilbert, anyway? He's so boring as to be utterly lacking in impact.

The writing was pretty good, though. ( )

The third star is a generous one. ( )

I thought I would read Anne Brontë before reading Charlotte Brontë; Why? Because I didn’t want to go with the most popular of the three; before exploring Anne and Emily. I loved Wuthering Heights for its unexpected story, with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I was secretly hoping from more of that. But instead I was presented with a book that while it with very much a Victorian novel; it did push topics, like Divorce, Abuse, Alcoholism, Feminism, Adultery and many more issues to do with morels.

I’ve heard this to be one of the better books on Marriage, Love, Social Realism, Piety, Alcoholism, Status and identity of its time and while I do agree. I sometimes felt as if the story dragged on more than it really had to. I know many books in the 1800’s like to go off in many directions without moving the story forward, and I’m fine with that; if the story was interesting and the plot wasn’t predictable. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a beautifully written book and I highly recommend it to everyone, I just think predictability stopped me from loving this book.
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