The Tenant of Wildfell Hall The Tenant of Wildfell Hall The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by the English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication. The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend and brother-in-law about the events connected with the meeting of his wife. A mysterious young widow arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for her own sake but for young Arthur's. She wants to "obviate his becoming such a gentleman as his father." According to Stevie Davies, Anne's depiction of the woman as fee-earning artist "trebly trespasses on the domain of the masculine: female artists dabbed in water-colours or sketched decoratively in pen and ink; ladies did not engage in trade; and, besides, tools of her trade [legally belonging to her husband] in this case count as stolen." Melinda Maunsell believes that Helen is "both revealed and concealed by her artistic hand; providing her with an acceptable means of expression within her social