The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: The Revolt of the

Abstract

According to Charlotte Brontë, her sister Anne’s novel had an unfavourable reception: “At this I connot wonder. The choice of subject was an entire mistake”, she affirms in her Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell. But, why did the eldest Brontë dislike the subject of Anne’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall? The aim of my article is to show that in the pages of this novel Anne Brontë not only gives a powerful indictment of the society of her time but defies with realistic zeal the most romantic aspects of both Charlotte’s and Emily’s novels. Anne Brontë’s difference with regard to her sisters will be explained and highlighted in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the radical character of the theme she chose.