The Brontes and the Road Less Travelled

Villette (Charlotte Bronte) and Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte)

Both texts have long been unfavourably compared with the more celebrated Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights despite sharing many of their subversive qualities: Anne’s ‘tenant’ is a single mother living in hiding from her depraved alcoholic husband whilst Charlotte’s Villette is an uncompromising depiction of the effects of repressed passion on the psyche of its lonely and awkward narrator-governess, Lucy Snowe. We will delve deep into the novels’ key themes, consider aspects of style and explore the way both approach issues about the place of women in mid-Victorian society.

Neither of these novels appear much on syllabi in schools or even beyond so here’s a perfect opportunity to ponder the  justice of this omission: literary turkeys or hidden gems?