I avoided reading any books by the Brontë sisters for many years, after failing to finish Villette, and then being put off further by Charlotte Brontë's well-known remarks about Jane Austen. After coming across an old copy of Jane Eyre I decided it was time to give the sisters another chance. I quite enjoyed Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights, which I read next, I liked less. Then I turned to Anne, not expecting much more than a paler version of her sisters' works.

Instead I find myself reading one of the most powerful English 19th century novels there can be, reminiscent of Dickens in its exposure of the hypocrisies and wrongs of society, but with shock and anger against these expressed not by the author, but aroused in the reader by Anne's unsparing descriptions of events.

"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is the story of a mysterious woman, Helen Graham, apparently a young widow with a child, and the development, after initial suspicion on her part, of friendship and finally love for a local farmer named Gilbert Markham. But, much more darkly, it is the story of a woman who learns the real nature of her adulterous husband, as he gradually descends into neglect and then abuse (of both her and their child), and is ravaged by alcoholism.

Few men of the time would have dared to write so frankly on such topics, and for a woman to have done so, especially one of Anne's background, is verging on the heroic, and must be counted a remarkable achievement.

At times the heroine, Helen, may strike some readers as pious or priggish - she reminded me of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park - and the author's firmly expressed Christian beliefs may also put some off. But nobody can fail to admire Helen's courage, endurance, and determination to protect her son.

Another review also suggests that Gilbert is not well drawn. However, I enjoyed the portrayal of his relations with his family and neighbours, though it is true that he is perhaps unaccountably violent and over-emotional at some points.