About the Book: Tenant Of Wildfell Hall
With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant, Christchurch University
College. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel
of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the
disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious tenant of the
title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves
her husband to protect their young son from his fathers influence, and earns her
own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters
Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her. On its first publication in 1848,
Anne Brontës second novel