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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Bronte
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other.’When Helen flees from her alcoholic husband in order to protect her son she defies societal convention. Earning a living as an artist, she becomes the mysterious tenant of Wildfell Hall as she hides herself away and uses her art to support her child. However, the beautiful and reclusive young woman soon begins to stir up malicious gossip and speculation. Captivated and drawn to Helen, Gilbert Markham becomes suspicious when he begins to hear these stories, however it is only when he reads Helen’s diary that he learns the full cruelty that her husband subjected her to in her previous life.Rejecting the societal norms surrounding marriage in Victorian Society, Anne Brontë’s novel, said to be based on the experiences of her own brother Branwell, shocked her readers at the time and still remains a scandalous read today.
THE TENANT
OF WILDFELL
HALL
Anne Brontë
DEDICATION (#u0057164f-9c8e-505b-8e74-92086cdf7854)
To J. Halford, Esq.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u6bf4d695-1f49-5e45-922a-df9db96b012b)
Title Page (#u298ad327-63a8-574c-901b-1a017b71f6a3)
Dedication
Author’s Preface to the Second Edition
Volume I
CHAPTER 1: A Discovery
CHAPTER 2: An Interview
CHAPTER 3: A Controversy
CHAPTER 4: The Party
CHAPTER 5: The Studio
CHAPTER 6: Progression
CHAPTER 7: The Excursion
CHAPTER 8: The Present
CHAPTER 9: A Snake in the Grass
CHAPTER 10: A Contract and a Quarrel
CHAPTER 11: The Vicar Again
CHAPTER 12: A Tête-à-Tête and a Discovery
CHAPTER 13: A Return to Duty
CHAPTER 14: An Assault
CHAPTER 15: An Encounter and its Consequences
CHAPTER 16: The Warnings of Experience
CHAPTER 17: Further Warnings
CHAPTER 18: The Miniature
CHAPTER 19: An Incident
Volume II
CHAPTER 20: Persistence
CHAPTER 21: Opinions
CHAPTER 22: Traits of Friendship
CHAPTER 23: First Weeks of Matrimony
CHAPTER 24: First Quarrel
CHAPTER 25: First Absence
CHAPTER 26: The Guests
CHAPTER 27: A Misdemeanour
CHAPTER 28: Parental Feelings
CHAPTER 29: The Neighbour
CHAPTER 30: Domestic Scenes
CHAPTER 31: Social Virtues
CHAPTER 32: Comparisons: Information Rejected
CHAPTER 33: Two Evenings
CHAPTER 34: Concealment
CHAPTER 35: Provocations
CHAPTER 36: Dual Solitude
CHAPTER 37: The Neighbour Again
Volume III
CHAPTER 38: The Injured Man
CHAPTER 39: A Scheme of Escape
CHAPTER 40: A Misadventure
CHAPTER 41: ‘Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast’
CHAPTER 42: A Reformation
CHAPTER 43: The Boundary Passed
CHAPTER 44: The Retreat
CHAPTER 45: Reconciliation
CHAPTER 46: Friendly Counsels
CHAPTER 47: Startling Intelligence
CHAPTER 48: Further Intelligence
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50: Doubts and Disappointments
CHAPTER 51: An Unexpected Occurrence
CHAPTER 52: Fluctuations
CHAPTER 53: Conclusion
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary
About the Author
History of Collins
Copyright
About the Publisher
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION (#u0057164f-9c8e-505b-8e74-92086cdf7854)
While I acknowledge the success of the present work to have been greater than I anticipated, and the praises it has elicited from a few kind critics to have been greater than it deserved, I must also admit that from some other quarters it has been censured with an asperity which I was as little prepared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his own productions; but I may be allowed to make here a few observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to judge it by a hasty glance.
My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the Reader; neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor’s apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.
As the story of ‘Agnes Grey’ was accused of extravagant over-colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, so, in the present work, I find myself censured for depicting con amore, with ‘a morbid love of the coarse, if not of the brutal,’ those scenes which, I will venture to say, have not been more painful for the most fastidious of my critics to read than they were for me to describe. I may have gone too far; in which case I shall be careful not to trouble myself or my readers in the same way again; but when we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? Oh, reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts – this whispering, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.
I would not be understood to suppose that the proceedings of the unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate companions I have here introduced, are a specimen of the common practices of society – the case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I know that such characters do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my heroine, the book has not been written in vain. But, at the same time, if any honest reader shall have derived more pain than pleasure from its perusal, and have closed the last volume with a disagreeable impression on his mind, I humbly crave his pardon, for such was far from my intention; and I will endeavour to do better another time, for I love to give innocent pleasure. Yet, be it understood, I shall not limit my ambition to this – or even to producing ‘a perfect work of art’: time and talents so spent, I should consider wasted and misapplied. Such humble talents as God has given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse, I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.
One word more, and I have done. Respecting the author’s identity, I would have it to be distinctly understood that Acton Bell is neither Currer nor Ellis Bell, and therefore let not his faults be attributed to them. As to whether the name be real or fictitious, it cannot greatly signify to those who know him only by his works. As little, I should think, can it matter whether the writer so designated is a man, or a woman, as one or two of my critics profess to have discovered. I take the imputation in good part, as a compliment to the just delineation of my female characters; and though I am bound to attribute much of the severity of my censors to this suspicion, I make no effort to refute it, because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
Anne Brontë
July 22nd, 1848
VOLUME I (#u0057164f-9c8e-505b-8e74-92086cdf7854)
Dear Halford,
When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me. Not being in a story-telling humour at the time, I declined, under the plea of having nothing to tell, and the like shuffling excuses, which were regarded as wholly inadmissible by you; for though you instantly turned the conversation, it was with the air of an uncomplaining, but deeply injured man, and your face was overshadowed with a cloud which darkened it to the end of our interview, and, for what I know, darkens it still; for your letters have, ever since, been distinguished by a certain dignified, semi-melancholy stiffness and reserve, that would have been very affecting, if my conscience had accused me of deserving it.
Are you not ashamed, old boy – at your age, and when we have known each other so intimately and so long, and when I have already given you so many proofs of frankness and confidence, and never resented your comparative closeness and taciturnity? – But there it is, I suppose; you are not naturally communicative, and you thought you had done great things, and given an unparalleled proof of friendly confidence on that memorable occasion – which, doubtless, you have sworn shall be the last of the kind, – and you deemed that the smallest return I could make for so mighty a favour would be to follow your example without a moment’s hesitation. –
Well! – I did not take up my pen to reproach you, nor to defend myself, nor to apologize for past offences, but, if possible, to atone for them.
It is a soaking, rainy day, the family are absent on a visit, I am alone in my library, and have been looking over certain musty old letters and papers, and musing on past times; so that I am now in a very proper frame of mind for amusing you with an old world story; – and, having withdrawn my well-roasted feet from the hobs, wheeled round to the table, and indited the above lines to my crusty old friend, I am about to give him a sketch – no not a sketch, – a full and faithful account of certain circumstances connected with the most important event of my life – previous to my acquaintance with Jack Halford at least; – and when you have read it, charge me with ingratitude and unfriendly reserve if you can.
I know you like a long story, and are as great a stickler for particularities and circumstantial details as my grandmother, so I will not spare you: my own patience and leisure shall be my only limits.
Among the letters and papers I spoke of, there is a certain faded old journal of mine, which I mention by way of assurance that I have not my memory alone – tenacious as it is – to depend upon; in order that your credulity may not be too severely taxed in following me through the minute details of my narrative. – To begin then, at once, with Chapter First, – for it shall be a tale of many chapters.
CHAPTER 1 A Discovery (#u0057164f-9c8e-505b-8e74-92086cdf7854)
You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.
My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in—shire; and I, by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet occupation, not very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher aims, and self-conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying my talent in the earth, and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother had done her utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great achievements; but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road to ruin, and change but another word for destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be, to walk honestly through the world, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to transmit the paternal acres to my children in, at least, as flourishing a condition as he left them to me.
‘Well! – an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation of my farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependants, but in some degree, mankind at large: – hence I shall not have lived in vain.’
With such reflections as these, I was endeavouring to console myself, as I plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards the close of October. But the gleam of a bright red fire through the parlour window had more effect in cheering my spirits, and rebuking my thankless repinings, than all the sage reflections and good resolutions I had forced my mind to frame; – for I was young then, remember – only four and twenty – and had not acquired half the rule over my own spirit, that I now possess – trifling as that may be.
However, that haven of bliss must not be entered till I had exchanged my miry boots, for a clean pair of shoes, and my rough surtout for a respectable coat, and made myself generally presentable before decent society; for my mother, with all her kindness, was vastly particular on certain points.
In ascending to my room, I was met upon the stairs by a smart, pretty girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy figure, a round face, bright, blooming cheeks, glossy, clustering curls, and little merry brown eyes. I need not tell you this was my sister Rose. She is, I know, a comely matron still, and, doubtless, no less lovely – in your eyes – than on the happy day you first beheld her. Nothing told me then, that she, a few years hence, would be the wife of one – entirely unknown to me as yet, but destined, hereafter, to become a closer friend than even herself, more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was collared in the passage, on coming down, and wellnigh jerked off my equilibrium, and who, in correction for his impudence, received a resounding whack over the sconce, which, however, sustained no serious injury from the infliction; as, besides being more than commonly thick, it was protected by a redundant shock of short, reddish curls, that my mother called auburn.
On entering the parlour, we found that honoured lady seated in her armchair at the fireside, working away at her knitting, according to her usual custom, when she had nothing else to do. She had swept the hearth, and made a bright blazing fire for our reception; the servant had just brought in the tea-tray; and Rose was producing the sugar-basin and tea-caddy, from the cupboard in the black, oak sideboard, that shone like polished ebony, in the cheerful parlour twilight.
‘Well! here they both are,’ cried my mother, looking round upon us without retarding the motion of her nimble fingers, and glittering needles. ‘Now shut the door, and come to the fire, while Rose gets the tea ready; I’m sure you must be starved; – and tell me what you’ve been about all day; – I like to know what my children have been about.’
‘I’ve been breaking in the grey colt – no easy business that – directing the ploughing of the last wheat stubble – for the ploughboy has not the sense to direct himself – and carrying out a plan for the extensive and efficient draining of the low meadow-lands.’
