The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Paperback – August 28, 2013

First of all, I'm a big fan of 19th century Victorian British literature. I love Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, and so on. Unfortunately, this novel by Anne Bronte has not been given its due. It has definitely taken a back seat to her sisters more famous novels, the eldest Bronte, Charlotte's "Jane Eyre," and the middle sisters, Emily's "Wuthering Heights." Anne died very young of illness in her early 20s, and Emily died too, around the same time. Apparently her surviving older sister, Charlotte had the idea that Anne had written an offensive, inappropriate, and possibly embarrassing book, so she suppressed it.Charlotte seems to have believed that Anne had no authority to write on the subject matter, which delves into some dark places, including just about every kind of human abuse - spousal, emotional, physical, child, drug, alcohol, financial, and even animal cruelty. Apparently for these reasons, Charlotte blocked further publications of Anne's major novel, posthumously, for some time. Also, once it finally resurfaced, sadly, apparently it was largely rewritten by male writers, unauthorized, and what we have today is probably not exactly as Anne Bronte intended, but we can only hope that enough of her story and her personal touch remains.A woman leaving an abusive husband is not so shocking or unusual in terms of today's standards, but in Victorian times, it was not just frowned on and shocking, it was illegal for a woman to leave her husband for ANY reason, or to live off her own income or labor. At that time, unfortunately for all women, the law in Britain still followed the Napoleonic Code, which said that women were basically sub-human, in the same category as children, and mental incompetents. Women had no legal rights to speak of, but that soon began to change for the better, as laws reformed. Nevertheless, our heroine reaches her limits, and at last rebels against her cruel, belittling, abusive husband, for the sake of her child, and they flee.There is a lot of excitement in the story, and twists in the plot. It seems to me, true to life, as far as spousal abuse, and other dysfunctional forms of human relationships. Apparently Anne may have gotten some of her ideas of dysfunctional relationships from observing her brother, who seemed to have substance abuse problems, and her experiences observing the lives of the very wealthy through her time working in aristocratic homes, as a governess. These experiences probably informed her creation of our aristocratic, proud, uncompromising, talented, highly intelligent, but rebellious heroine. However, Anne's personal experiences alone could not have produced this surprising, dark, and unusual story, which in many ways is ahead of its time. Apparently Anne had skill in story telling, and great imagination. This novel has tons of romance and love, darkness and intrigue, and surprising twists and turns.

Sure, it seems a little like English. Most of the words are English words. But the sentences are not well-formed English sentences.Here's a short example:Here's a short example.GUTENBERG VERSION:‘Of course, my dear. Poor thing! How lonely she must feel!’THIS "VERSION":'Of path, my expensive. Poor element! How lonely she need to experience!'In other remarks made by the characters, they refer to each other as "my pricey" rather than as "my expensive".My guess would be that the handwritten original was scanned into a computer, run through OCR software to get approximately the correct English text with some grammatical and spelling errors, then run through Google Translate to get a text in some other language, and finally run through Google Translate back into English.The reason I don't think that it was only done with the last two steps is that, if you translate twice with Google Translate, you do generally get grammatically correct sentences, even if the sentences are a bit awkward. But there are many grammatical mistakes too, and some "sentences" are literally just lists of unrelated words in no particular order, which makes me think that the original before any translations were done were so difficult to parse that this low bar could not be met.I bought this book a month before I was ready to start reading it. I see that Amazon says that this title is no longer available. Why? Because it's not actually a book of sentences in any language? If that's the reason, they should have sent me a note and refunded my money when they discovered the mistake. Hello, Amazon?

If you’re thinking you’d like to do a survey of the Brontë sisters’ writing, don’t. There is absolutely no reason to read Anne’s work; she’s only in print/on kindle 150+ years later because her sisters were famous. Anee’s works should have been consigned to the dustbins of history. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall screams mediocrity . Wildfell has no life, neither in the narrator or the characters. Despite the book’s length, Brontë is unable to make any of these characters clear; they speak with one voice. The female protagonist has the added feature of being TSTL. The form of the novel is also excruciating. A second-grader could have better stapled the varying first-person accounts (stories within stories) together.If I had a physical copy of this book I would fling if against the wall. Instead, I will try to take comfort in knowing that I never need to read Anne Brontë again.

Arrived in great condition and on time. I've only read a little bit of it so far and from what i've read it seems like it's going to be a very interesting book. Only issue i've been having with it is the I guess you could call it the "lingo" of it, the wording of it. It was published in the 1840's and going by the wording of it they haven't updated the wording to current standards, which I don't mind since changing it would ruin it. It's interesting so far but if you're not used to reading books written and worded in past centuries "lingo" which i'm not as much as i'd like to be I wouldn't recommend it. You end up spending more time trying to decode it and read out words you've never heard of before then reading the actual story. That's been my problem anyways. But I really respect Anne for being brave enough and not caring enough to write and publish this in a time when woman were seen as objects to be owned and not being able to have a voice. I respect any female writer period from that time for writing, they went completely against the social standards for the time (even illegal ones) and I have nothing but the upmost respect for them. It's women like her who paved the way for the life we as woman have now, it's not perfect by any means but compared to how woman were treated back then it's no comparison.

Even though I have a copy of this book on my kindle, I wanted to own a physical copy too!Though I have read the usual Bronte classics, I arrived at this book during my time at university and fell in love with it instantly. I recall wondering why it hadn't been as well-received as her sisters books, particularly as for me, this was the best of them all.This is a book that I hugely recommend everyone tries for themselves because it is an example of just how before-her-time Anne really was as a capable female writer. Most importantly, it is simply an enjoyable read that so many people I know return to again and again, such is its power.This Wordsworth Classic book was, as usual, in pristine condition and well-packaged on delivery. I don't think I've ever had any issues with this fantastic collection.

I don't find Anne Brontë as good a writer as her sisters; although this is an interesting tale, the characters came across as a bit flat, being pretty much divided into angels and demons. The good characters are flawlessly pious, dutiful and forebearing, whilst the "bad" characters are almost all irremediably nasty, selfish individuals who die young through illness or violence.The story centres around Helen Graham a mysterious young, and beautiful, woman who has just taken up tenancy at the dilapidated Wildfell Hall. Local lad Gilbert Markham takes a shine to her, but she's a bit stand-offish and secretive. Gilbert is persistent though and, on the eve of leaving Wildfell Hall, she hands him her diary revealing details of her marriage to her selfish and cruel husband and that she is a fugitive from him at Wildfell Hall.What's really striking about this novel is how progressive it is, dealing as it does with issues of domestic violence, alcohol abuse, adultery and the utter subjugation of women within marriage. Early in the novel ( chapter 3 ) Helen voices a lengthy criticism of the different attitudes people have in the way they assume boys should be raised compared to girls; this was written two hundred years ago and it is depressing to think that the points the author was making here remain mainstream thought to this day.Not a great novel, but a powerful early feminist voice and worth reading for that alone.

First don't believe reviewers who say Ann is not as good a writer as her sisters Emily and Charlotte. What rubbish! This is a wonderful story and beautifully written. My one gripe is the transposing of the text to Kindle. Oh dear, so many spelling mistakes, typos of punctuation and apostrophes in the wrong place, note can't not ca'nt. All the way through ugh! Found this with other 19th century Kindle novels too, unless the Victorians had different ideas on spelling. Please make sure Kindle books are checked properly by someone with an excellent command of English and spelling, with the right letters in the right place, alleviate not ellaviate, for example. And who spots the dotted red lines under words to prove the spelling is wrong!

Wow.The other Bronte sisters seem to idolise the men with demons but this book doesn't cast that character as the hero. With our increasing knowledge of domestic abuse, this seems like a very modern take.The book starts off slowly, but persevere.I've struggled to write this review without spoiling the plot line!

Although Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre have always been two of my favourite Victorian classics, this is the first time I've read anything by the youngest Bronte sister, Anne - and I enjoyed it almost as much as the other two books I've just mentioned.The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the story of Helen Huntingdon, a young woman who leaves her alcoholic husband and goes into hiding with her five year-old son, Arthur. Not long after arriving at Wildfell Hall she meets local farmer, Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her. When Gilbert questions her about the rumours circulating about her in the village, she allows him to read her diary in which she had recorded the details of her unhappy marriage.The book has an interesting structure - it's told partly in the form of letters from Gilbert to his brother-in-law Jack Halford, and partly as extracts from Helen's diary. I didn't particularly like Helen as I thought she was just a little bit too saintly and perfect, but she was a very strong person who defied convention to do what she thought was best for herself and her child. Her diary entries are filled with descriptions of some really despicable characters and describe scenes of drunkenness, violence, verbal and physical abuse, and adultery, which I can imagine readers in the 19th century would have been shocked by.Anne's writing style is not the same as her sisters' - there's less dramatic romanticism and poetic imagery, although she still writes with a lot of passion. However, I would have no hesitation recommending this book to anyone who has enjoyed Emily and Charlotte's work, as well as those of you who have never read any other Bronte books - it gets 5 stars from me.