Books like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a superb novel! It had a gripping plot that grabbed me from the first page and didn't let up until the last page. I liked the narrative style of the novel too. Anne Bronte uses the perspectives of her two primary protagonists, Mr. Gilbert Markham, and Mrs. Helen Graham, extraordinarily effectively through the use of diary entries and correspondence. It seems to me that Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall addresses some very profound issues that women of all ages have faced in marriages, especially that of patriarchy and abuse. I truly believe that while this novel has some very dark, almost Gothic, undertones; Bronte has, in my opinion, written a novel that puts forth a powerful moral message and empowers women to make those difficult decisions that are best for themselves and their children. Anne also has her heroine taking up her brushes, paints and canvas in order to make money to support herself and her son--a thoroughly shocking notion for a woman of gentility to embark upon. Toward that end, I think that this book is an excellent example of early-Victorian proto-feminist writing. To me The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is as emotionally captivating a novel as Charlotte's Jane Eyre or Villette and it may just be even more artfully crafted than those as well. It intrigues me that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall seems to always be overshadowed by Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but then that seems to be how Anne was with her sisters--she was the quiet one. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an important book, and one that I will read again and again.