The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I realized I've been reading way too much genre fiction of late--a steady diet of Star Wars, Torchwood, and Buffy is probably not conducive to improving one's critical faculties. So I've decided to read more classical literature, starting with Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Anne was the youngest Bronte sister, and her second novel, Wildfell Hall, was the subject of great controversy and even suppressed in many locales when it was first published. The reason for the uproar was Anne's realistic treatment of alcoholism, adultery, and (emotional) spousal abuse. The book's protagonist, Helen Huntingdon (nee Graham) is forced to abscond in the middle of the night with her young son in order to escape her abusive husband. While living in seclusion on a piece of land owned by her brother, Helen is the subject of gossip among her rural neighbors. And although Helen falls in love with a well-to-do farmer, she's unwilling to break her original marriage vows and much drama ensues. The book is framed with a series of letters from Helen's suitor to an old friend, while the middle portions are extracts from Helen's diary written years prior. The sudden jump from the present to years prior and then back again is a little jarring, but on the whole I thought this was quite well-written and mature. One can definitely see echoes of issues battered women face today--if only there were such things as restraining orders in early nineteenth-century England! From what I'm told, the book was in part written as a response to the more romantic view of tyrannical husbandry portrayed in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

The main thing that induced me to read this book was the gorgeous edition published by Worth Literary Classics. Each book in the line comes in a really elegant faux-leather binding, with essays by scholars in the field, colour maps, and an elastic bookmark. I've already picked up another book in the line, a collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.