BRONTË, ANNE
With her little boy and a servant, a mysterious young widow enters Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan house that has been vacant for many years. She uses the alias Helen Graham while residing there in complete seclusion, and she soon becomes the target of local slander. Gilbert Markham, a young farmer who doesn't believe anything scandalous about her, learns about her sinister secrets. Helen chronicles her husband's physical and moral degeneration caused by alcohol in her diary, as well as the environment of excess and violence she has abandoned. The moral context of this story of marital infidelity is moderated by Anne's upbeat faith in the salvation of all people.
