The Tenant of Wildfell

The gradual change in Mr. Huntingdon from the happy confident lover to the ruined debauchee; the story of his infatuation for the wife of his friend, so reckless that he attempted no concealment, is realistic in the extreme. A hundred years before, Huntingdon would have made a fine hero of romance, but here in 1848 he is disgraced to the position of chief villain. In addition to the descriptions of the Hall, the mystery that surrounds its mistress, the rumours of her unknown lover, the heathclad hills and the desolate fields, there is a deeper vision of life with its weaknesses and its depths of human passion.