by Brontë, Anne
16. Unsigned review in Sharpe’s London Magazine7 (August 1848), in CH, p. 265.
17. Unsigned review in the Literary World {12. August 1848), in CH, p. 259.
18. Thomas Moore, Byron, p. 277.
19. See ‘The Non-existence of Women’, North British Review (August 1855); Caroline Cornwallis, ‘The Property of Married Women’, Westminster Review 10 (October 1856). The first Married Women’s Property Act was not passed until 1882.
20. 1834 diary paper, Brontë Parsonage Museum.
21. In Agnes Grey, Ch. 17: ‘pillars of witness set up, in travelling through the vale of life, to mark particular occurrences’.
22. See Inga-Stina Ewbank, ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Women Beware Women’, Notes and Queries10 (1963), pp. 449–50.
23. In And The Weary Are At Rest, quoted with comments by Winifred Gérin, Branwell Brontë, pp. 257.
24. F. H. Grundy, Pictures of the Past (1879): see Gérin’s moving remarks on this in Branwell Brontë, p. 301.
25. Unsigned review, Examiner (29 July 1848), p. 256.
26. Ellen Nussey’s account to Mrs Gaskell, SHLL, Vol. II, p. 336.
TEXTUAL NOTE
No manuscript of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has survived. It seems likely that the first draft of the novel was composed during the period of the Brontë sisters’ ‘workshops’ in the second half of 1846, when fane Eyre was being projected and (in Edward Chitham’s view: Life, pp. 139–40) Wuthering Heights may have been undergoing revision. It is safe to hypothesize that the first draft of Wildfell Hall was completed on 10 June 1847, the date which is given at the conclusion of the narrator Markham’s correspondence with Halford. After November 1847 (when Anne had finished correcting the proofs of Agnes Grey), she may have redrafted and fair-copied the new novel, which she offered to her original publisher, T. C. Newby, who had bound her to an option on a second novel.
Newby published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall at the end of June 1848, in a three-volume edition by ‘Acton Bell’ costing £1. 11s. 6d. In July it was published by Harper Brothers in New York, in a one-volume edition (and additionally in two paperback parts). However, Newby had sold Wildfell Hall to the American publisher under false pretences as the work of ‘Currer Bell’, Charlotte’s pseudonym, in order to cash in on the sensational success of Jane Eyre. As Charlotte Brontë wrote, ‘Acton Bell’s publisher is a shuffling scamp’ (Letter to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, SHLL, p. 251). She complained that the proof-corrections of Wutbering Heights and Agnes Grey were ignored by his printer, and lamented Newby’s technical negligence as well as his lack of probity. Newby published what he called, and the ‘Bells’ accepted (CB Letter to W. S. Williams, September 1848, SHLL, Vol. II, p. 255), a ‘second edition’ in London, in August 1848, but this is better described as a second issue, consisting of unsold sheets of the first London edition, together with a Preface by the author dated 22 July 1848, which Charlotte (who deplored Anne’s second novel) described as ‘sensible’ (ibid., p. 255). Textual variations between these two issues are minor but have been considered by the present editor in making editorial judgements.
A cheap edition was issued in 1854 by Thomas Hodgson in the Parlour Library series, priced one shilling and sixpence. This corrupt text, which is highly expurgated, would become the basis for most subsequent British editions. It is worthless to the modern editor.
The text reproduced here, which is based on the Newby ‘first edition’ in the Bodleian Library, incorporates the Bodleian copy of the ‘second edition’ Preface. Hargreaves’s belief that the New York edition ‘if set from Newby proofs, may preserve a few authorial features that differ from the final Newby version’ (p. 19) admits of some doubt. The ‘Author’s Own Copy’ of the first edition, held by Princeton University Library, contains thirty-four pencilled revisions in Volume II, which may be Anne Brontë’s own, and which are worth taking into account. However, not only is the volume’s provenance problematic but these corrections are puzzling in their mingling of sensible revisions with the introduction of fresh errors together with the retention of old errors.
Anne Brontë’s handwriting was habitually neat and legible. The errors and inconsistencies in the first edition in spelling, punctuation and use of capitals may therefore be the result of compositorial interference whether conscious or unconscious; the practice of an apprentice reading aloud to the compositor, together with the possible eccentricity of Anne Brontë’s own usage. Careless reading seems to have turned ‘earnest supplication’ into ‘earnest application’ (p. 303); ‘exclamation’ into ‘explanation’ (p. 305), ‘gambolling’ into ‘gambling’ (p. 51), ‘might’ into ‘mite’ (p. 381). The present edition draws attention to such errors, and judicious amendment has been made in the text.
The vexed question of Anne Brontë’s eccentric punctuation, involving inconsistent use of the comma, both in excess and defect; heavy informal use of the dash; and heavy formal use of the semicolon is addressed in the present text as a complex issue. It is possible, as Hargreaves believes, that some of the variation reflects the influence of different compositors in typesetting. My assessment, however, is that the curious mingling of informalizing punctuation with what we would see as overly formal punctuation (even acknowledging the more formal standard practice of the times) represents a conflict germane to the author herself. The free use of dashes, as rhythmic devices to indicate impromptu speech or thought, was a device favoured by all three Brontë sisters, especially in dialogue and expressive narrative, as giving a breathing immediacy to language. It would be natural to expect such voice-prints in the informal discourse of fictionalized letters and diary, as representing written language at its most intimate and spontaneous – and of course The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an epistolary novel with inset diary. It should also be recalled that Anne and Emily Brontë had improvised orally in composing their Gondal narratives, thus generating the facility for bravura speech and the feeling for exponential development of narrative. This narrowing of the gap between spoken (or thought) and printed words is, however, contradicted in Anne Brontë by the classicizing influence of her ‘Enlightenment’ rationalism, which strives towards the greatest precision and control.
These two influences produce a schismatic struggle on the page which may be viewed through the contradictory notations of a punctuation striving at once toward expressiveness and toward balance and reason. Hence I have taken care not to over-correct passages where, for instance, dashes are accompanied by commas or semicolons, and where commas are absent, e.g., before a name or title in the vocative (””You are mistaken there ma’am””, ‘“you must see her Gilbert’” (p. 16), or in impetuous utterances (‘“I won’t I tell you” ‘ (p. 61) or slangy emphasis (‘no not a sketch’), even where this is followed by what we would see as over-punctuation (‘no not a sketch, – a full and faithful account’). Epistolary discourse is in itself quite enough to justify usage fluctuating between formality and informality. Hence a degree of inconsistency should be tolerated rather than eliminated. In, for instance, Chapter 35, when Helen exclaims ‘God, only, knows how often I shall need it [self-command] in this rough, dark road that lies before me’ (p. 316), the commas around ‘only’ are allowed to remain as minute breathing-pauses, substituting for italics, to indicate that God only can penetrate the nil visibility in Helen’s world. Nor have I deleted commas before vocatives, where these are supplied, since the formality they imply may be intended, in a rhetorical rhythm that moves freely (if sometimes confusingly) between high and low styles.
Commas have however been deleted between a complex subject and its verb and inserted where only half of a pair of commas occurs around an adverb in the first edition; and I have removed supernumerary commas attendant on a parenthesis, or resituated the second of the two – for the reason that, in these cases, Wildfell Hall’s anomalous punctuation is either redundant or obscuring. I have on occasion allowed an intrusive comma after ‘perhaps’ to stand, as this is an observable feature of northern usage even today,
and may have represented Anne Brontë’s own idiolect, placing emphasis on the doubt conveyed in the ‘perhaps’; likewise, commas after ‘because’ are not invariably eliminated (see Chapter 15, n. 1). The principle of minimal interference allows the editor to represent a genuine tension within Anne Brontë’s mind and expression. This tension is often in the form of the struggle of hypotaxis against parataxis. It is frequently found in long, formless sentences (see Chapter 25, n. 5), whose complex grammar of hypotaxis is strung paratactically upon dashes representing the mind in ferment, rhapsody or wandering (the Romantic impulse), bearing the broken chains of heavier and more securely formal punctuation (the ‘Enlightenment’ impulse). Notes draw attention to the more notable of such stylistic features.
Spelling has generally been regularized and normalized in accordance with Penguin house style, except where Anne Brontë’s characteristic inconsistencies cause no problem in comprehension. Single quotation marks are used for the first edition’s double quotation marks; full stops after ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ are omitted; italicization has been retained. The latter is essential to the emotional forcefulness and immediacy of Anne Brontë’s style, and is another form held in common with the authors of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, working with the dashes to suggest the rhythms of minds freely and intensely expressing themselves. The following spellings are now obsolete or obsolescent and have been amended accordingly in the text: blythe (blithe), canvass (canvas), chesnut (chestnut), controul (control), dyed (died), exstatic (ecstatic), illude (elude), irradicate (eradicate), expence (expense), phrensy (frenzy), gulph (gulf), gingling (jingling), P jacket (pea-jacket), pretensious (pretentious), recompence (recompense), referrible (referable), skreen (screen), secresy (secrecy), shew (show), snoose (snooze), teaze (tease), tremour (tremor), vengibly (vengeably (see Chapter 13, n. 2)), villan (villain), visiter (visitor), wo (woe). Words with prefix ‘in–’ or ‘im–’ (e.g., incased, ingaged, imbowered) have been amended where appropriate to ‘en–’ or ‘em–’ in accordance with modern usage.
Facsimile title page of the first edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
While I acknowledge the success of the present work1 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 censured2 with an asperity which I was as little prepared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my feelings, 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 prefaced the first edition had I foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would 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 treasure 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.3 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 overcolouring4 in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, 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,’5 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 flowers? O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts – this whispering ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace6 – 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 proceedings of the unhappy scapegrace with his few profligate companions I have here introduced are a specimen of the common 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 perusal, and have closed the last volume with a disagreeable impression on his mind, I humbly crave his pardon, for such was far from my intention; and I will endeavour to do better another time, for I love to give innocent pleasure. Yet, be it understood, I shall not limit my ambition to this, – or even to producing ‘a perfect work of art:’ time and talents so spent, I should consider wasted and misapplied. Such humble talents7 as God has given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.
One word more, and I have done. Respecting the author’s identity,8 I would have it to be distinctly understood that Acton Bell is neither Currer nor Ellis Bell, and therefore, let not his faults be attributed to them. As to whether the name be real or fictitious, it cannot greatly signify to those who know him only by his works. As little, I should think, can it matter whether the writer so designated is a man, or a woman as one or two of my critics profess to have discovered. I take the imputation in good part, as a compliment to the just delineation of my female characters; and though I am bound to attribute much of the severity of my censors to this suspicion, I make no effort to refute it, because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
July 22nd, 1848.
VOLUME I
TO J. HALFORD, ESQ.1
Dear Halford,
When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me. Not being in a story-telling humour at the time, I declined, under the plea of having nothing to tell, and the like shuffling excuses, which were regarded as wholly inadmissible by you; for though you instantly turned the conversation, it was with the air of an uncomplaining, but deeply injured man, and your face was overshadowed with a cloud which darkened it to the end of our interview, and, for what I know, darkens it still; for
your letters have, ever since, been distinguished by a certain dignified, semimelancholy stiffness and reserve, that would have been very affecting, if my conscience had accused me of deserving it.
Are you not ashamed, old boy – at your age, and when we have known each other so intimately and so long, and when I have already given you so many proofs of frankness and confidence, and never resented your comparative closeness and taciturnity? – But there it is, I suppose; you are not naturally communicative, and you thought you had done great things, and given an unparalleled proof of friendly confidence on that memorable occasion – which, doubtless, you have sworn shall be the last of the kind, – and you deemed that the smallest return I could make for so mighty a favour would be to follow your example without a moment’s hesitation. –
Well! – I did not take up my pen to reproach you, nor to defend myself, nor to apologize for past offences, but, if possible, to atone for them.
It is a soaking, rainy day, the family are absent on a visit, I am alone in my library, and have been looking over certain musty old letters and papers, and musing on past times; so that I am now in a very proper frame of mind for amusing you with an old world story; – and, having withdrawn my well-roasted feet from the hobs, wheeled round to the table, and indited the above lines to my crusty old friend, I am about to give him a sketch – no not a sketch, – a full and faithful account of certain circumstances connected with the most important event of my life – previous to my acquaintance with Jack Halford at least; – and when you have read it, charge me with ingratitude and unfriendly reserve if you can.
I know you like a long story, and are as great a stickler for particularities and circumstantial details as my grandmother, so I will not spare you: my own patience and leisure shall be my only limits.
