This volume completes the acclaimed Clarendon Edition of the Novels of the Brontes. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte's second (and last) novel, was published in June 1848, less than a year before her death. It is the sombre account of the breakdown of a marriage in the face of alcoholism and infidelity. Writing with a power not usually associated with the youngest of the Bronte sisters, Anne portrays the decline of an aristocratic husband whose drunken excesses and domestic violence force his loving wife into a reluctant rebellion. The novel enjoyed a modest success that led its publisher, the unscrupulous T. C. Newby, to issue a `Second Edition' less than two months later. The present volume offers a text based on the collation of the first edition with the second (really a re-issue of the first, with a few corrections). The introduction details the work's composition and early printing history, including its first publication in America; and the text is fully annotated. Appendices record the substantive variants in the first English and American editions, and discuss the author's belief in the doctrine of universal salvation.

For the first time a major novel by Charlotte Bronte appears in an edition based directly on the author's manuscript. Like her other mature work, The Professor owes much to her relationship with M. Heger, her Brussels schoolmaster. The first of her full-length novels, it is of special interest since it was written comparatively soon after her experiences in Brussels in the early 1840s, but not published until 1857, after her death. A full introduction gives an account of its composition, analyses the manuscript, and describes the circumstances of its eventual publication, in an inaccurate form, under the editorship of A. B. Nicholls. Appendices include an unused `Preface' - one of Charlotte Bronte's attempts to `recast' the novel - and a list of substantive variants between the manuscript and the first edition. Her last fragmentary novel, `Emma', begun after Villette, is now transcribed directly from the author's rough draft, instead of from the polished and revised text produced by Nicholls, George Smith, and Thackeray for the Cornhill Magazine in 1860. The volume contains full indexes to Biblical and literary allusions in Charlotte Bronte's four major novels, thus giving a fascinating guide to the nature and extent of her reading. The editors also make use of continuing research by providing a list of additions and corrections to all previous volumes in the Clarendon Bronte series.

'he looked up wistfully in my face, and gravely asked - "Mamma, why are you so wicked?"' The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall has a dark secret. But as the captivated Gilbert Markham will discover, it is not the story circulating among local gossips. Living under an assumed name, 'Helen Graham' is the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence. Her diary entries reveal the shocking world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. Combining a sensational story of a man's physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Bronte's optimistic belief in universal redemption. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Bronte's novel scandalized contemporary readers. It still retains its power to shock. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Professor (1845-6), written before Jane Eyre, challenged contemporary expectations of the novel by its brevity, realism, and insistence on a working career both before and after marriage for its hero and heroine. Strikingly up to date for its period, the action begins against a background of the fight for better factory conditions in the 1830s, and finishes in the early 1840s with the spread of liberal ideas which led to the continental revolutions of 1848. This edition is based directly on the author's fair copy manuscript, and also includes `Emma', Charlotte Bronte's last, unfinished attempt to write a novel after Villette. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'You expected bread, and you have got a stone; break your teeth on it, and don't shriek...you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.' Shirley is Charlotte Bronte's only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bronte's deep yearning for an earlier time. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.