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.
