In the 1800s, an abused woman didn't have a lot of options. She couldn't get a divorce, all her property and her children belonged to her husband, and society turned a blind eye unless she actually got murdered. 
 So it was shocking to Victorian sensibilities when one of the Bronte sisters churned out a powerful little novel about a woman abused by her husband, and the terrible effects on both her and her young son. "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is one of the lesser known Bronte works... and that's completely undeserved, because it's a powerful feminist novel about a woman caught between her abusive husband and the kind man she loves. 
 A mysterious woman and her young son move into the remote Wildfell Hall, without telling anyone of their arrival. Though the villagers are initially curious and welcoming, they eventually become hostile to Mrs. Helen Graham because she doesn't act like a proper Victorian lady -- she's prickly, blunt, reclusive and opinionated, and seems incredibly protective of her young son Arthur. Furthermore, they suspect that she's having an affair with her landlord Mr. Lawrence. 
 Yeoman farmer Gilbert Markham is immediately attracted to Helen, and manages to get under her armor enough to strike up an odd little friendship with her. But his ex-girlfriend Eliza spreads noxious rumors about Helen and Mr. Lawrence, and Gilbert becomes jealous. To show him the truth, Helen gives him her diaries -- which reveal the horrifying, abusive marriage that she escaped from, and may now be returning to... 
 Anne Bronte is often considered the "lesser" Bronte sister, since she didn't write "Jane Eyre" or "Wuthering Heights." It doesn't help that her sister Charlotte made sure that this, her most successful novel was not republished during her lifetime. Maybe she disliked the book because of its approach to the story (less romantic and gothic), or maybe she didn't like the scandalous subject matter. Or maybe she was jealous of her sister. Who knows? 
 "A Tenant of Wildfell Hall" shows that Anne is not the lesser Bronte sister, but the most underrated. After slowly building up a web of secrets and half-truths, she presents the ugly picture of Helen's marriage through her diaries. This is where the perspective switches from Gilbert's to Helen's, and shows how she naively married a man she thought she could reform... only to get stuck with a vicious, amoral brat who loved sex, booze and killing things. 
 And she's further downtrodden by some of the people in Gilbert's village, who tend to be gossipy (Eliza) or pompously self-righteous (the local minister). It's easy to see why prissy, sexist Victorian society was aghast at a woman implicitly refusing her husband sex, then openly challenging the opinions of the males around her -- especially when those opinions are that girls should be sheltered from knowledge of the world, and boys should be "made men" with booze and women. You know, the attitudes that still exist to this day. 
 Bronte wrote in a more realistic, less romanticized way than her older sisters, although she produces many moments of lyrical beauty ("where the blood-red harvest moon, just rising over one of the grim, fantastic evergreens, was shining in upon us"). In fact, it's sort of the opposite of the romances of the time, since Gilbert is not always noble and awesome, and the guy who seems to be his romantic rival is... well, not. 
 And in Helen, she creates a very memorable heroine -- she's strong, outspoken and passionate, unwilling to subject herself or her beloved son to her husband's corruption. But she's also a very moral, religious and compassionate. Gilbert is -- in some ways -- a very young and inexperienced guy, falling in love for the first time and struggling with his jealousy. But his friendship with Helen makes their romance all the more plausible, and serves as a stark contrast to her relationship with Arthur Sr. 
 "Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is not usually held up alongside "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights," probably because it's more realistic than romantic... which is a shame, because it's a powerful, sometimes painful book whose message is still relevant today.