From AudioFile
Helen Graham has taken up residence in the bleak Wildfell Hall with her young son to escape her alcoholic and philandering husband. The story is narrated both by Helen and the man who falls in love with her. 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. May reads Helen's diary and correspondence. May's voice is young, fresh and naive, well-suited to Helen as a young woman; the voices of the men are excellent as well. Her laughter sounds genuine, and her portrayal of drunken men is perfect. She moves the narrative along crisply, with just the right touch of drama. Davidson's voicing is also excellent, but he tends to overdramatize at times, and his tempo is just a shade too fast. 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. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
Of the three Bronte sisters, Emily and Charlotte are better known, yet it is Anne's work which carries some of the strongest feminist themes. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a devout young woman named Helen falls in love with a man who is handsome, but whose values are questionable; willing to believe she can alter his character, she marries him. Her marriage becomes a misery she has no power to change until she devises a bold plan to take control. Her story comes through two voices - her own and that of Gilbert Markham, a man who falls in love with Helen later in her life - and is told through journals and letters written over a period of time. Because of the privacy and immediacy of these narratives, the reader sees personal changes and attitudes Helen and Gilbert are often unaware of at the time: we witness Helen's first naive protestations of passion for her husband and follow her through her eventual disillusionment; we recognize Gilbert's early, unconscious egotism. While the plot continues and mysteries are unraveled, what Helen and Gilbert say - as well as what they don't say - provides another story to follow, which reinforces Anne Bronte's indictment of the sexual double standards of nineteenth-century Britain. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.
Tenant of Wildfell Hall ANNOTATION
Bronte's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society. The heroine leaves her dissolute husband and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. An Oxford University Press World Classic.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Compelling in its imaginative power and bold naturalism, the novel opens in the autumn of 1812, when a mysterious woman who calls herself Helen Graham seeks refuge at the desolate moorland mansion of Wildfell Hall. Bronte's enigmatic heroine becomes the object of gossip and jealousy as neighbors learn she is escaping from an abusive marriage and living under an assumed name. A daring story that exposed the dark brutality of Victorian chauvinism, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was nevertheless attacked by some critics as a celebration of the same excesses it criticized. This edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the companion volume to the Mobil Masterpiece Theatre WGBH television presentation broadcast on PBS.
SYNOPSIS
ver a short period in the 1840s, the three Brontᄑ sisters working in a remote English parsonage produced some of the best-loved and most-enduring of all novels: Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, a book that created a scandal when it was published in 1884 under the pseudon
FROM THE CRITICS
AudioFile - Paul E. Ferrari
In the character of Helen Huntingdon, Anne Brontᄑ has produced a stronger testament to feminism than either of her sisters. Like many such heroines, however, Helen is headstrong, and her ensuing marriage is filled with brutality and shame. When Helen finally escapes her alcoholic husbandᄑs tyranny, she has to support both herself and her young son. Gilbert Markham, who has fallen in love with the unfortunate woman, narrates much of the story in letters to a friend, while the rest comes from Helenᄑs own journal. Alex Jennings, who reads Markhamᄑs letters, gives us a strong sense of the youthᄑs energy and frustration, while Jenny Agutter, who reads Helenᄑs journal, never loses sight of the powerful heroineᄑs threatened dignity and immense personal control. Both of these accomplished actors combine to create a moving and eloquent narration. P.E.F. ᄑAudioFile, Portland, Maine