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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf Editions.
The Tenant of
Wildfell Hall.
Anne Bronte.
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Anne Bronte. T he Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Purchase the entire Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf on CD at
About the author
which her brother, Branwell, and three of her sisters had al-
ready died.
Anne Brontë ( January 17, 1820 - May 28, 1849) was a
British author, one of a trio of famous Brontë sisters who
wrote acclaimed Victorian romantic novels of manners and
society.
She was born in the village of Thornton, Yorkshire, En-
gland. Her mother died a year later, and the family soon af-
terwards moved to Haworth where their father was vicar. Two
of Anne's sisters, Charlotte and Emily, were also authors and
poets. Anne's poetry was published, along with that of her
sisters, in 1845, under the pseudonym "Acton Bell".
Anne died at the seaside resort of Scarborough, England
which was also the setting for both of her novels. She was
buried at Saint Mary's Churchyard, Scarborough. She had
been in Scarborough for only a few days, having been sent
there in the hope of curing her tuberculosis — an illness from
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Anne Bronte. T he Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
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Contents
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Anne Bronte. T he Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
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1
The Tenant of
Wildfell Hall. .
Author’s preface to
the Second Edition.
NOTICE
Copyright © 2004 thewritedirection.net
Please note that although the text of this ebook is in the
public domain, this pdf edition is a copyrighted publication.
FOR COMPLETE DETAILS, SEE
COLLEGEBOOKSHELF.NET/COPYRIGHTS
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 pre-
pared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my feel-
ings, 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 pref-
aced the first edition, had I foreseen the necessity of such
precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would
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2
Anne Bronte. T he Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
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3
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 trea-
sure 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 exag-
geration, 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 flow-
ers? 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 proceed-
ings of the unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate com-
panions I have here introduced, are a specimen of the com-
mon 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
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