Additional information
by Anne Bronte (Author), Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Introduction by)
The only one-volume hardcover edition of the two uncommonly powerful novels written by the youngest of the famous Brontë sisters, with an introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallet.
Anne Brontë wrote these two fantastically successful novels just before her tragically early death, both of them in a much more grittily realistic mode than the more romantic ones favored by her sisters. Agnes Grey, the story of a governess working for disdainful and cruel employers, is a wrenching account of the desperate straits faced by Victorian women without money or husband. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tells a story that was shocking for its time: a woman leaves her alcoholic and abusive husband in order to protect their young son and must live in hiding to prevent the law from taking her child away from her. These novels have become classics not only by dint of the subtle and ironic force of Anne Brontë's prose but because of the passionate indictments of social injustice that animate them.
Author Biography
ANNE BRONTË (1820-1849) was the youngest sister of Charlotte and Emily Brontë. After working as a governess, she wrote Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and a book of poetry with her sisters before dying of tuberculosis at age twenty-nine.
LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT is an award-winning cultural historian and critic. She is the author of biographies of Cleopatra and Gabriele d'Annunzio and of Heroes: A History of Hero Worship. Former television critic for the Evening Standard, she has long been a regular contributor to the books section of The Sunday Times (London). She has judged a number of literary prizes and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.
