Y'all. Today is a big day. Today, for the first time ever in 2020, the To-Be-Blogged stack is cleared. We are officially caught up, you guys, and it feels so good. I'll probably be finishing The Diary of Anne Frank later today, but that is neither here nor there. For this brief moment in time, there are no books sitting in a pile, waiting to be blogged about before returning to their rightful homes on my bookshelves. Please, join me in a happy dance.
I picked up this pretty, clothbound edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall at Powell's in Portland, OR a few years ago (yes, on the same visit I bought All the Light We Cannot See), and have been looking forward to reading it ever since. It was also one of the books on my 2019 book list and I had planned to read it with a friend which is probably the reason I did not end up reading it. (Sorry, Jen!) Don't try to understand how my mind works. It's a wild place.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë was originally published in 1848 under Anne's male pseudonym "Acton Bell" and was an instant success. The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham (to his friend, Halford) about the events surrounding his introduction and subsequent friendship with a mysterious young widow (calling herself "Helen Graham") who arrives at Wildfell Hall (an old abandoned mansion in the neighborhood) with her young son and a female servant. Markham is writing these letters in 1847 but is referring to the time Helen first comes to Wildfell Hall in 1827. In the course of his letters, he reveals part of Helen's diary (which she gave to him) which flashes back even further to 1821. As we read her diary, we discover that Helen fell in love and married young thinking she could fix the flaws of her man because people get better, right?
Wrong. She finally ends up running away from her husband with her young son in tow in the hopes of preserving them both from her cheating, alcoholic husband.
While the contents of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall may not seem very shocking to us today in the 21st century, the sensation it created in Victorian society at the time cannot be overstated. A woman supporting herself financially was one thing, but a woman leaving her husband and taking their child with her violated social convention and early 19th century English law. Critics today consider it one of the first feminist novels, but at the time it was published, Anne got roasted. Even her own sister Charlotte tried to prevent the re-publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall after Anne's death saying, and I quote, "'Wildfell Hall' it hardly appears desirable to preserve." People have speculated about Charlotte's motives for this, but I intend to agree with the class that thinks she was a jealous old hag. (Except not actually old since she wasn't even 40 at the time.)
Anne defended herself against the critics of her day in a preface to the second edition saying:
...when we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts—this whispering 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace—there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.
Okay, Anne! You go ahead with your bad self, girlfriend!
She goes on in the preface to stick it to the critics who suspected her feminine identity thereby dismissing her work, saying:
I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
I mean, she was sassy and I'm here for it.
A lot of critics, both in her time and even now, think the only reason her work has endured is through the reputation of her sisters and her connection as an author with them. I call foul. I intimated a few years ago after reading her first novel, Agnes Grey, that I thought her work was just as good (maybe even better) than Charlotte's and Emily's, and after reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, she has solidified her status as my favorite of the Brontë sisters. As opposed to their Romanticism, she was one of the few authors of her time who employed Realism and it rang true. During certain parts of Helen's diary where she is describing a party at which her husband and his friends are getting drunk, I was squirming with discomfort. She perfectly encapsulated the experience of being in that atmosphere.
I loved Agnes Grey, but The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is Anne Brontë's true masterpiece. It's such a shame she died so young. (29!) I can only imagine what else she might have produced given more time and experience on this earth. I'm glad she's finally getting her time in the sun. I'm not the only Anne fan around these days. While The Tenant of Wildfell Hall isn't exactly a light, fun novel, I couldn't put it down and flew through it in less than a fortnight (as our Victorian authors like to say). If you're going to get into the Brontë sisters, don't sleep on Anne!
Have you read any of the Brontës' work? I still have Villette and Shirley by Charlotte to go, and I also have Emily's complete poetry that I haven't really gotten into yet. What's your favorite of the Brontë sisters' novels?
P.S. Shoutout to my husband's co-worker Amanda who helped me figure out which photo to post with this recap, and which to post over on my Instagram. Thanks, girl!
