«Each volume in the «Collector's Library» series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of «The Tenant of Wildfell Hall» is by Kathryn White, an established expert on the Bronte family and former Librarian of The Bronte Parsonage Museum at Haworth on the Yorkshire Moors.»

When mysterious Helen Graham and her son move to Wildfell Hall, it sets her neighbours talking. Who exactly is Helen Graham, and why does she keep her past a secret?

When mysterious Helen Graham and her son move to Wildfell Hall, it sets her neighbours talking. Who exactly is Helen Graham, and why does she keep her past a secret?

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 father's 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 Brontë's second novel was criticised for being 'coarse' and 'brutal'. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defence of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Brontë's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned her a position in English Literature in her own right.