The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

When a mysterious widow and her young son take up residence in the crumbling Wildfell Hall, the quiet rhythms of a Yorkshire village are thrown into disarray. But Helen Graham is no ordinary widow. Her hidden past—revealed through the pages of her private journal—unfolds into one of the boldest stories of self-determination ever written.

In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Anne Brontë dismantled the polite illusions of Victorian domesticity to expose the realities of addiction, cruelty, and women’s legal powerlessness. Her heroine’s flight from an abusive marriage was more than an act of personal courage; it was a moral and social rebellion that anticipated modern feminism by nearly a century.

This new annotated edition by Celia Harrow situates Brontë’s groundbreaking novel within its cultural and historical context, exploring themes of truth-telling, moral agency, and survival. Harrow’s extensive foreword examines Brontë’s radical realism, her critique of patriarchy, and her enduring influence on women’s writing and social reform.

With its fusion of gothic atmosphere, moral clarity, and emotional intelligence, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall remains one of the most courageous works of nineteenth-century fiction—a timeless story of endurance, integrity, and resistance.