Basically, when they married they had little or no control over their own lives, children or property. The novel tackles weighty themes, especially women’s legal position in mid-Victorian Britain. The plot centres on her and Gilbert’s developing relationship. Local farmer Gilbert Markham falls in love with Helen and defends her reputation, although he’s troubled by her relationship with her landlord who, unbeknownst to him, is her brother. Helen had married young but her husband was an alcoholic and adulterer and she’d left him to protect their young son from his baleful influence. Helen Graham, the eponymous tenant, is a mysterious new arrival in the neighbourhood about whom rumours soon abound. Indeed, she tackled subjects that were taboo for her time more openly and comprehensively than they did. Of the three Brontë sisters, Anne has always trailed behind Charlotte and Emily in the popularity stakes, which is a pity as her writing abilities equalled theirs.
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