MP3 Audios - Classic Literature

"Frederick Davidson and Nadia May take the roles of the storytellers, and they do an excellent job of portraying both the male and female voices.The choice to use both male and female narrators was a good one, enlivening the story and underlining the differences between the sexes in Victorian England."AudioFile

Like her sisters Emily and Charlotte, Anne Bront published under a male pseudonym, yet still this novel was scorned by many for its exposure of the abusive male chauvinism that was concealed, like all things sexual, during the Victorian Era. Just as Anne had to use a male pseudonym in order to publish, Helen Graham, the novel's protagonist and a battered wife, must assume an alias in order to gain freedom from her suffering. With her young child, Helen takes up residence at Wildfell Hall, shrouding her past in secrecy, yet earning the attentions of a young unmarried country gentlemen. Anne Bront employs the atmosphere of the bleak Yorkshire moors and the cold, rugged gloom of the fictional mansion to set the stage for a tragedy that reveals the secret violence in a society considered well-mannered.