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Sign up todayThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Length
15 hours 41 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Frederick Davidson & Wanda McCaddon
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreLike her sisters Emily and Charlotte, Anne Brontë published under a male pseudonym, yet still this novel was scorned by many for its exposure of the abusive male chauvinism that was concealed, like all things sexual, during the Victorian Era.
Just as Anne had to use a male pseudonym in order to publish, Helen Graham, the novel’s protagonist and a battered wife, must assume an alias in order to gain freedom from her suffering. With her young child, Helen takes up residence at Wildfell Hall, shrouding her past in secrecy yet earning the attentions of a young unmarried country gentleman. Anne Brontë employs the atmosphere of the bleak Yorkshire moors and the cold, rugged gloom of the fictional mansion to set the stage for a tragedy that reveals the secret violence in a society considered well-mannered.
With a powerful plot that reveals the troubles of the times, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is now lauded as a classic of Victorian literature.
Anne Brontë was born in Yorkshire in 1820. The Brontë children were raised in an isolated parsonage, where they thrived in fantasy worlds that drew on their voracious reading of Byron, Scott, Shakespeare, and Gothic fiction. Anne’s first novel, Agnes Grey, was published together with her sister Emily’s Wuthering Heights in 1847. She died of tuberculosis in 1849, shortly after Emily and their brother Branwell died of the same illness.
Frederick Davidson (1932–2005), also known as David Case, was one of the most prolific readers in the audiobook industry, recording more than eight hundred audiobooks in his lifetime, including over two hundred for Blackstone Audio. Born in London, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed for many years in radio plays for the British Broadcasting Company before coming to America in 1976. He received AudioFile’s Golden Voice Award and numerous Earphones Awards and was nominated for a Grammy for his readings.
Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.
Reviews
“Frederick Davidson and Nadia May take the roles of the storytellers, and they do an excellent job of portraying both the male and female voices. May reads Helen’s diary and correspondence. May’s voice is young, fresh and naive, well-suited to Helen as a young woman; the voices of the men are excellent as well. Her laughter sounds genuine, and her portrayal of drunken men is perfect. She moves the narrative along crisply, with just the right touch of drama. Davidson’s voicing is also excellent…The choice to use both male and female narrators was a good one, enlivening the story and underlining the differences between the sexes in Victorian England.”
“Anne’s second and last novel was published to great success in 1848. Its subject-matter at the time was so shocking that one reviewer declared it ‘utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls.’ The novel is vast but primarily tells the story of Helen, whose husband is abusive and dissipated…The book’s most shocking moments are the ones which depict Arthur’s abusive attempts to get the young child drunk, seemingly to spite and hurt his wife, and it’s clear from the narrative that Brontë had a lot of first-hand experience in dealing with and subduing drunk men. The book was so upsetting to her sister Charlotte that, after Anne’s death she passed on the chance to have it reprinted, and the book was neglected for a really long time. Today it is widely considered to be a landmark in early feminist literature, but its frank depictions of addiction within marriage are just as deserving of acclaim.”
“Of the three Brontë sisters, Emily and Charlotte are better known, yet it is Anne’s work which carries some of the strongest…themes…While the plot continues and mysteries are unraveled, what Helen and Gilber say…reinforces Anne Brontë’s indictment of the sexual double standards of nineteenth-century Britain.”
“Every reader who has felt the power of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights comes, sooner or later, to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Anne Brontë, with all the Brontë taste for violence and drama…did not shrink. She used the material at hand, and shaped it with singular honesty and seriousness…Anne is a true Brontë.”
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