Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - cover

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Anne Brontë

Publisher: Dead Dodo Classic Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by the English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication.
 
The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend and brother-in-law about the events leading to his meeting his wife.
 
A mysterious young widow arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years, with her young son and servant. She lives there in strict seclusion under the assumed name Helen Graham and very soon finds herself the victim of local slander. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert Markham, a young farmer, discovers her dark secrets. In her diary, Helen writes about her husband's physical and moral decline through alcohol, and the world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. This novel of marital betrayal is set within a moral framework tempered by Anne's optimistic belief in universal salvation.
 
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is mainly considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels.
 
May Sinclair, in 1913, said that the slamming of Helen's bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England. In escaping her husband, Helen violates not only social conventions, but also English law.
Available since: 11/18/2015.

Other books that might interest you

  • From Poverty to Power - cover

    From Poverty to Power

    James Allen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    From Poverty to Power was published in two parts, the first dealing with the road to prosperity and the second the state of peace that ensues when it has been realized. In the foreword, the author described his aim as follows: "I dreamed of writing a book which should help men and women, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, worldly or unworldly, to find within themselves the source of all success, all happiness, all accomplishment, all truth".
    Show book
  • The Trade Wind - cover

    The Trade Wind

    Morgan Robertson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915) was a popular American author of short stories and novels who claimed to have been the inventor of the periscope.'The Trade Wind' is the strange and unsettling story of a ship where all the crew are mysteriously struck blind after a night of drinking rum in the tropics...a condition called moon blindness, for which there is no available cure.Having lost their sight, the men must work out how to sail, navigate and negotiate bad weather at sea. But strange occurences on board suggest that not all is as it seems....
    Show book
  • After Twenty Years - cover

    After Twenty Years

    O. Henry

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings.In this story two old friends had promised to meet up exactly 20 years to the day since their last meeting in New York. One of the friends has travelled a thousand miles to be there...and is now waiting for his childhood companion. Will he turn up?
    Show book
  • The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu - Fu Manchu Book 2 - cover

    The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu - Fu...

    Sax Rohmer

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie's underground war against the nefarious genius of Dr. Fu-Manchu continues in this, the second in the Fu-Manchu series by Sax Rohmer. Join in the adventure of kidnappings, poisonous cats, a haunted house, rat torture, mummy attacks and more!
    Show book
  • The Man of the Forest - cover

    The Man of the Forest

    Zane Grey

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    An Arizona mountain man saves a woman from a bitter range war in this classic western adventure by the author of Riders of the Purple Sage.   Enjoying his solitude in Arizona’s White Mountains, Milt Dale has little reason to descend into town. He has no interest in the gossip and strife of townsfolk, and as a skilled hunter and woodsman, all his needs are met in the splendor of the forest. But while taking shelter from a storm in an abandoned hut, Dale overhears a nefarious plot he cannot ignore.   A local landowner has hired a gang to kidnap the niece of a prominent rancher. When Dale’s warnings go unheeded, he takes it upon himself to protect the young woman and her kid sister. Away from the menace of civilization, Dale brings them to the rugged safety of mountain trails. But beyond the untamed forest, danger awaits.
    Show book
  • The Purple Wig - cover

    The Purple Wig

    G.K Chesterton

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Publisher's SummaryGilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer best known for his fictional priest-detective, Father Brown.In The Purple Wig, an investigative journalist, Frances Finn, sets out to discover the strange secret of the dukes of Exmoor and the legend of their mysterious hereditary deformed ear. When Finn meets the current duke, he is wearing a hideous purple wig, which apparently he never takes off in the presence of anybody. It would appear to be an ugly way of hiding his deformity...but Father Brown, who is visiting the duke at the time, is suspicious about the motives for wearing such a wig. As the investigation progresses, the story takes a highly unexpected turn.
    Show book