The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
By Anne Brontë
‘And pray, be quick about it; and mind you bring me word how much sugar she puts in her tea, and what sort of caps and aprons she wears, and all about it; for I don’t know how I can live till I know,’ said Fergus, very gravely. But if he intended the speech to be hailed as a master stroke of wit, he signally failed, for nobody laughed. However, he was not much disconcerted at that, for when he had taken a mouthful of bread and butter and was about to swallow a gulp of tea, the humour of the thing burst upon him with such irresistible force that he was obliged to jump up from the table, and rush snorting and choking from the room; and a minute later, was heard screaming in fearful agony in the garden.
As for me, I was hungry and contented myself with silently demolishing the tea, ham, and toast while my mother and sister went on talking and continued to discuss the apparent or non-apparent circumstances and probable or improbable history of the mysterious lady, but I must confess that, after my brother’s misadventure, I once or twice raised the cup to my lips, and put it down again without daring to taste the contents, lest I should injure my dignity by a similar explosion. The next day, my mother and Rose hastened to pay their compliments to the fair recluse and came back, but they were a little wiser than they had gone. However, my mother declared she did not regret the journey, for if she had not gained much good, she flattered herself she had imparted some, and that was better: she had given some helpful advice, which, she hoped, would not be thrown away; for Mrs.
Genre: Fiction And Literature | Women's Studies
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Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet and the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.
Biography.
Anne Brontë was the daughter of Maria (née Branwell) and Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England. Anne lived most of her life with her family in the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. Otherwise, she attended a boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837 and lived elsewhere between 1839 and 1845, working as a governess. In 1846, she published a book of poems with her sisters and later two novels, initially under the pen name Acton Bell.
Her first novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847 at the same time as Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily Brontë. Anne’s second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is often considered one of the first feminist novels. Anne died at 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis. After her death, her sister Charlotte edited Agnes Grey to fix issues with its first edition but prevented the republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As a result, Anne is not as well known as her sisters. Nonetheless, both of her novels are considered classics of English literature.
Anne Brontë
