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Rating: 
Summary: Strong women, take note
Review: A heroine quite unlike the standard Dickensian wallflower. Nor a villaness, although many modern career women will find her too "traditional" for thier taste. Intelligent, strong-willed, virtuous Helen Lawrence falls for the *wrong* guy, marries him against advice, and, discovering that she cannot convince him to change his vices to virtues, struggles to free herself and their son. A bit of high-flown melodrama aside, it is a brilliant and pointed satire of the dating and marriage games of the upper classes, the violence-without-consequences of "Wuthering Heights" and the *unrealistic* expectations placed upon women by the church and by early Victorian society. Did I mention that Anne Bronte loved wild nature scenes, animals and children? :)
Rating:
Summary: The forgotton work from the forgotton sister
Review: After reading a flat and unintresting Jane Eyre I found myself shunning the work of the Bronte family, until I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This is no Jane Eyre and should never be compared, even though frequently I have heard the outlandish comparision. In the novel Anne Bronte introduces the reader to real women, no Jane Eyre type who's only accomplishment was living one her own. No Anne Bronte's main character leaves her husband ( something which was unheard of at that time) and lives alone with her son. Bronte also changes the form of the classic novel by speaking as from both a man and woman's perspective. The strengh of the novel is the fact that Bronte's starting narrator is a man then a woman and once again a man. She takes a risk which last over 100 pages when the tenant (woman) becomes the narrator as the man narrator reads her journal. This novel tell a tale of a woman who breaks free from society to save herself. Anne Bronte has become the forgotton sister, though her works were never as sucessful as her to sisters, I feel that her risk taking ability, along with her ability to tell a great story makes her the best out of the three. I would also tell everyone to read her other novel Agnes Grey for it to is a great story. I only wish that Anne Bronte had left more works for her loyal fans as myself to read.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
Review: Anne Bronte's description of the married life of Helen and Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shocked me with its abuse and wanton cruelty like no other book from the 19th century has. Taken in an historical perspective, the feminist view of this book is impressive. Helen Huntingdon defies the conventions of her, and Bronte's time, by leaving her dissolute husband and living independently. This gives Bronte the opportunity to criticize village life with its nosy neighbours and petty gossip, and aspect neither of her sisters achieved in either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, where the characters exist in vacuums. I enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it highly. I also recommend the PBS movie version starring Tara Fitzgerald and Rupert Graves.
Rating:
Summary: Unusual for its Time
Review: Anne is not the most well-known of the Brontes, but perhaps she's the most forthright of the three. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the story of an independant woman of infinite strength. A woman who, after making the seemingly fatal mistake of a bad marriage (a mistake that might doom other women of her age to depression and ) manages to set herself free. It is not a haunting story, nor a frightening one but it is one filled with alcolism, abuse and great misery in a marriage, all issues that were (and are in the novel) swept under the carpet, politely ignored. A woman was to be pitied, but not helped. Helen helps herself. The novel's single confusing and disruptive aspect is the fact that it is in two sections, the beginning and ending the letter Gilbert Markham writes to his friend, and the middle Helen's own diary. Both stories are part of the same narrative; Gilbert's beginning just before Helen's ends, and are inseperable, but this forces the reader to 'begin' again. The story itself, and the boldness with which Helen's life and Gilbert's careful uncertainty are addressed, is near perfect. A masterpiece, and by no means any less great than Anne's sisters' works.
Rating:
Summary: Must read for any Bronte fan
Review: As some people would say, once you read "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" then you'll definite end up with Anne Bronte "Tenant of Wildfell Hall." The heroine is Helen. She could've turn out to be another Jane Eyre if she didn't have a son or an alcoholic husband. Like Jane, she stands by her moral convictions, and takes drastic action if necessary to achieve or maintain them. All in all, the book is terrific which all the characters got what they just deserve where every books should be.
Rating: 
Summary: One Long Sermon
Review: Never having read Anne Bronte before, and being a huge fan of Charlotte Bronte, I went into this book with high expectations. Perhaps that is my fault. Gilbert Markham's share of the story is interesting and flowing, but Helen's part begins to drag, and the reader is drawn into what feels like Anne Bronte's rather annoying God-talk. Helen is more interesting when seen from Markham's perspective. However, when we are introduced to the Helen who marries Huntingdon, one can't help but feel that perhaps he is the victim, driven to drink by her overly "good" nature. In fact, she was so good she is just downright annoying. Always quick to sermonize and put herself in the place of good, the novel doesn't start to pick up again until Gilbert takes over the narrative again. Also, the Helen we see after the death of her husband is flirtatous, nothing like the woman we see before, and even though Gilbert loves her more after he learns her real story, I can't help but feel that he should have gone running in the opposite direction. It's obvious that the reason Anne Bronte is not as widely read as her sister is that she did not have the same skill for making a truly good AND sympathetic character the way Charlotte did with Jane Eyre. Jane was good and pure, but passionate, while Helen was downright preachy, even for her time. Even the rantings of Heathcliff and Catherine were better than this. I give two stars simply because I liked Markham's passion.
Rating:
Summary: The tremendous, forgotten Bronte sister
Review: Now this was a surprising gem of a novel! Back in high school we read a couple staples by Anne Bronte's more famous sisters Charlotte and Emily. But you never hear much about Anne so you may expect "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" to be decidedly inferior to her sisters' work. You would be, umm, wrong. :-) This novel never approached the popularity of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but believe me that wasn't on account of quality. Rather, Tenant explores themes that went quite against the grain of accepted English cultural norms of the time (early 1800s). Helen Graham (her assumed name in the beginning of the story) not only dares to think herself wiser than her fool of a husband Arthur, she acts upon it and takes drastic steps to protect her child from his influence. The heroine's actions were considered radical at the time and that's probably why the novel didn't do as well as those of her sisters, whose novels were relatively a sight more conventional. The story is told through two devices: (1) a flashback from the viewpoint of the hero Gilbert Markham and (2) a large section of Helen's very detailed diary embedded within Markham's story. The arrangement works well and allows Markham to withhold certain crucial details until later, making the novel quite a page turner. Despite Bronte's many grammatical errors (the editor of the Penguin edition readily points them out in excellent endnotes), her writing is superb. Characterization is phenomenal; you have met some of these people before and you may even find that Bronte describes many elements of your own personality in her creations! During Markham's flashback you'll be just as horrified as he was at discovering "evidence" of Helen's duplicity. During the diary portion you'll empathize with Helen for her poor choice of a spouse. You'll see Helen's opinion of Arthur spiral downhill as she gets to know him better during married life, showing how falling in love made her blind to the glaring faults in his character early in their relationship. The novel will likely make you examine yourself. If you're single it'll help you understand the criticality of choosing a spouse that won't doom you to a dull (or even worse, unhappy) life. If you're married it'll (hopefully!) make you grateful that you're not stuck with an Arthur or Annabella type. If most men and women were as selfish and shallow as nearly all of the characters in Tenant, the world wouldn't be a pretty place to live in. These people DO exist (I have relatives and their friends who proudly strut the behavior that Arthur and his cronies do), but thankfully not in near the proportions that Bronte paints. Highly recommended for all adult readers!
Rating:
Summary: Anne may be the *best* Bronte if you are an "Janite"
Review: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a riveting novel by the "least famous" Bronte sister Anne. The main character is Helen Huntingdon, who also uses the assumed name Helen Graham for part of the book. Narrated in part by Mr. Markham, the gentleman farmer who falls in love with her, and partly by herself in diary form, the Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a sad portrayal of the miseries Helen Huntingdon endures at the hands of an immature self-centered husband. The story starts out with Helen, an intriguing beautiful "widow" who comes to live in a deserted moorland mansion called Wildfell Hall with no one but her maid and young son as companions. She excites the gossip of the local townspeople by her refusal to mingle in the town's social life, her strong opinions on the upbringing of her 5 year old son, and by working to support herself as a landscape painter. Mr. Markham, the gentleman farmer, rather than being repelled by her fiercely guarded independence is intrigued by her and determines to learn more about her, falling in love with her in the process. Helen becomes the butt of sinister gossip when it is discovered that she and Mr. Lawrence, her landlord, are not the strangers to each other that they pretend to be in public, and it is rumored that something is going on between them romantically. It is in response to this falsehood that she turns over her diary to Mr. Markham, who at last learns within its contents her true identity, why she is at Wildfell, and why she can not marry him. He also learns the astonishing identity of Mr. Lawrence. Helen's diary traces her life from a naive girl of 18 to a courageous woman of 26, and the sorrow and trials she endures in her marriage to a wretch of a husband, the womanizing, alcoholic Arthur Huntingdon.
Rating: 
Summary: As Good as the Rest of Them
Review: This is a much more interesting book than I expected it to be. I came to it as almost every reader will come to it: after having read almost everything of her more famous sisters'. I don't know what I was expecting - perhaps something paler or more insipid. Pale and insipid it is not. Anne Bronte's prose is fully as energetic as the others', and she has a world-view that equally as rich, nuanced and fully realized (how /could/ they have thought so much, and about so much?). The plot here, as any casual observer knows, revolves around the woman yoked to a loutish husband. Some have perceived this as more original or daring than her sisters' plots, and certainly in her own time, it received a special kind of disapprobation (even Charlotte appears to have thought it cut a bit close to the bone - apparently perceiving that the lout was patterned on their own dear brother). Maybe so, but in another sense, you could say that it is just the mirror image of the Jane Eyre plot. Mr. Rochester has a guilty or scandalous secret about his wife; Mrs. Huntington has the same about her husband - not the same secret, but equally eligible for secrecy. Each has an innocent lover; in each case the point is to disentangle from the guilty and join with the innocent. The device of the loutish husband is not necessarily all that promising. In the hands of an amateur it is no more than a setup for a tedious account of outraged virtue. Indeed if this were all, we would do well to leave it for the Jerry Springer show. The reason this book works is that it is not just a tale of outraged virtue: Mrs. Huntington makes it clear just how much she was attracted by Mr. Huntington: how she walked into this bog on her own, and against all the entreaties of her nearest and dearest. As if to cap it all, we are treated to the spectacle of an older, more chastened Mrs. Huntington trying to warn a younger companion off from making the same kind of mistake. We readers can make up our own mind as to what the young companion is likely to do. Unfortunately, after a bit of this, the modality of outraged virtue takes over. Huntington wallows in vice; Mrs. Huntington remains a saint. Even here, the author does not lose us: she is a remarkable dialectician, and I am not sure the case of the woman wronged has ever been put better. What is missing is an important human truth: vice (to use the Victorian term) is catching, and suffering does not purify. Indeed, that is one of the things so dreadful about suffering. You cannot put up with someone like Huntington indefinitely before some of it wears off on you. It beggars all expectation to suppose that Mrs. Huntington could have come through all this without meanness, without spite, without the slightest hint of schadenfreude. Indeed on this point (dare one say it), Jerry Springer just might be a better guide. But life is too short for that. Instead, thank heavens for the Brontes, and what a pleasure to learn that Anne is just as absorbing as the rest.
Rating:
Summary: As Good as the Rest of Them
Review: This is a much more interesting book than I expected it to be. I came to it as almost every reader will come to it: after having read almost everything of her more famous sisters'. I don't know what I was expecting - perhaps something paler or more insipid. Pale and insipid it is not. Anne Bronte's prose is fully as energetic as the others', and she has a world-view that equally as rich, nuanced and fully realized (how /could/ they have thought so much, and about so much?). The plot here, as any casual observer knows, revolves around the woman yoked to a loutish husband. Some have perceived this as more original or daring than her sisters' plots, and certainly in her own time, it received a special kind of disapprobation (even Charlotte appears to have thought it cut a bit close to the bone - apparently perceiving that the lout was patterned on their own dear brother). Maybe so, but in another sense, you could say that it is just the mirror image of the Jane Eyre plot. Mr. Rochester has a guilty or scandalous secret about his wife; Mrs. Huntington has the same about her husband - not the same secret, but equally eligible for secrecy. Each has an innocent lover; in each case the point is to disentangle from the guilty and join with the innocent. The device of the loutish husband is not necessarily all that promising. In the hands of an amateur it is no more than a setup for a tedious account of outraged virtue. Indeed if this were all, we would do well to leave it for the Jerry Springer show. The reason this book works is that it is not just a tale of outraged virtue: Mrs. Huntington makes it clear just how much she was attracted by Mr. Huntington: how she walked into this bog on her own, and against all the entreaties of her nearest and dearest. As if to cap it all, we are treated to the spectacle of an older, more chastened Mrs. Huntington trying to warn a younger companion off from making the same kind of mistake. We readers can make up our own mind as to what the young companion is likely to do. Unfortunately, after a bit of this, the modality of outraged virtue takes over. Huntington wallows in vice; Mrs. Huntington remains a saint. Even here, the author does not lose us: she is a remarkable dialectician, and I am not sure the case of the woman wronged has ever been put better. What is missing is an important human truth: vice (to use the Victorian term) is catching, and suffering does not purify. Indeed, that is one of the things so dreadful about suffering. You cannot put up with someone like Huntington indefinitely before some of it wears off on you. It beggars all expectation to suppose that Mrs. Huntington could have come through all this without meanness, without spite, without the slightest hint of schadenfreude. Indeed on this point (dare one say it), Jerry Springer just might be a better guide. But life is too short for that. Instead, thank heavens for the Brontes, and what a pleasure to learn that Anne is just as absorbing as the rest.
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