The Tenant of Wildfell Hall or poet, but only as the sister of Charlotte and Emily." In 1959, two biographies were published: "Anne Brontë, her life and work" by Ada Harrison and Derek Stanford and "Anne Brontë" by Winifred Gérin. Noting that "The Tenant" was published some ten years before George Eliot's novels, Harrison and Stanford named Anne the "first realist woman writer" in Great Britain. Unlike some early critics, who considered the scenes of debauchery improbable, Harrison and Stanford believed them to be "described in a fashion which Zola might have admired." Winifred Gérin believed Helen Graham to be "one of the first married
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for many years, with her young son and a servant. She lives there in strict seclusion under the assumed name Helen Graham and soon finds herself the victim of local slander. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert befriends Helen and discovers her past. In her diary, Helen depicts her husband's physical and moral decline through alcohol and her desperate attempts to save their son from his influence in the dissipated aristocratic society from which she ultimately flees. The depiction of marital strife and women's professional identification has also a strong moral message mitigated by the authors's belief in