The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Library Edition

Bronte, Anne

ISBN 10: 0786159545 ISBN 13: 9780786159543

Publisher: Blackstone Pub, 2007

Synopsis

Like her sisters Emily and Charlotte, Anne Brontë published under a male pseudonym, yet still this novel was scorned by many for its exposure of the abusive male chauvinism that was concealed, like all things sexual, during the Victorian Era.

Just as Anne had to use a male pseudonym in order to publish, Helen Graham, the novel's protagonist and a battered wife, must assume an alias in order to gain freedom from her suffering. With her young child, Helen takes up residence at Wildfell Hall, shrouding her past in secrecy, yet earning the attentions of a young unmarried country gentlemen. Anne Brontë employs the atmosphere of the bleak Yorkshire moors and the cold, rugged gloom of the fictional mansion to set the stage for a tragedy that reveals the secret violence in a society considered well-mannered.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1820. The Bronte children were raised in an isolated parsonage, where they thrived in fantasy worlds that drew on their voracious reading of Byron, Scott, Shakespeare, and Gothic fiction. Anne's first novel, Agnes Grey, was published together with her sister Emily's Wuthering Heights in 1847. She died of tuberculosis in 1849, shortly after Emily and their brother Branwell died of the same illness.

Review

Frederick Davidson and Nadia May take the roles of the storytellers, and they do an excellent job of portraying both the male and female voices.The choice to use both male and female narrators was a good one, enlivening the story and underlining the differences between the sexes in Victorian England. --AudioFile

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Pub
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0786159545
• ISBN 13: 9780786159543
• Binding: MP3 CD
• Language: English