The Longest Letter Ever: Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Longest Letter Ever: Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I’ve been reading one of the Bronte novels, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. This is a classic epistolary novel, but more complex or perhaps just more complicated in form, as it uses a very long letter (in 1847) from a husband (Gilbert) to an unseen friend who has asked him—as a show of trust—confide something about his own life. This is the opening:
Dear Halford,
When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me. Not being in a story-telling humour at the time, I declined, under the plea of having nothing to tell, and the like shuffling excuses, which were regarded as wholly inadmissible by you; for though you instantly turned the conversation, it was with the air of an uncomplaining, but deeply injured man, and your face was overshadowed with a cloud which darkened it to the end of our interview, and, for what I know, darkens it still; for your letters have, ever since, been distinguished by a certain dignified, semi-melancholy stiffness and reserve, that would have been very affecting, if my conscience had accused me of deserving it.

He ends this first (and by far shortest) of the letters with a question to the reader (John Halford).

“Now, Halford, I bid you adieu for the present. This is the first instalment of my debt. If the coin suits you, tell me so, and I’ll send you the rest at my leisure: if you would rather remain my creditor than stuff your purse with such ungainly, heavy pieces, — tell me still…”

Presumably Halford writes back very quickly begging for more, as Chapter 2 begins the second (eventually interminable) letter:

“I have it now before me; and though you could not, of course, peruse it with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with an abbreviation of its contents and you shall have the whole, save, perhaps, a few passages here and there of merely temporal interest…”

Gilbert then mentally travels back 20 years to relate the events that led up to him meeting and marrying Helen.

This second very long continuous letter charts the entire year starting with him meeting this “widow”, falling in love with her, and coming to suspect that she is a deceptive harlot. Though he is writing twenty years hence, and knows all his suspicions were foolish, he writes as if he is truly feeling that terrible jealousy. At one point, he describes how he assaults and gravely injures her “lover” (who is in reality her blameless brother), which—in retrospect—would be something he should be ashamed of, now that the poor victim has been his dear brother-in-law for two decades. But he is “writing in the moment,” very much putting himself back into the body and mind of that callow impulsive young man.

It’s kind of fun, actually, because the older Gilbert surely must be mentally noting as he writes how many clues he missed, how many innocent comments he misinterpreted. Impressively, he almost never “breaks the frame.” The start of the letter explains to his friend why he is writing this, and the end of the letter, he adds a close that begins (rather hilariously to my mind): “But it is time to bring my narrative to a close. Any one but you would say I had made it too long already.” (I think his friend actually would also say that.)

But in between the first part of the letter (15 chapters) and the ending part of the letter (14 more chapters) there’s the diary (20 chapters). (I’m working with OwlEyes’s edition with the helpful hyperlinked chapters, but did they have to do them in Roman numerals?) The young Helen, doubtlessly aggravated by the young Gilbert’s clueless suspicions, thrusts into his hands the diary she kept during her marriage to an abusive man. It’s important to note that this diary goes back several years before the start of Gilbert’s narrative in 1827-1828, so the basic timeline of the plot would be (I think):

(Keep in mind this epic letter is being written from retrospect perspective in 1847.)

June 1821: Helen’s diary begins. An 18-year-old Helen has just met the charming but reckless Arthur Huntingdon.

December 1821: Helen marries Huntingdon.

December 1822: Helen gives birth to little Arthur.

1822 – 1826: Helen narrates “in real time” her husband’s descent into abuse and madness.

October 1827: Helen finally escapes with her son to the dilapidated Wildfell Hall, owned by her brother Frederick.

November 1827: The diary ends here, almost at the moment she meets Gilbert.

Autumn 1828: Helen, in response to Gilbert’s suspicions and local gossip, gives him the actual diary to read.

(Gilbert stops transcribing the diary here and goes back to writing the multi-volume letter.)

November 1828 – December 1829: Helen goes back to nurse her husband who is dying from his dissipations.

Spring 1830: Helen and little Arthur return to Wildfell Hall.

August 1830: Gilbert and Helen finally marry.

June 10, 1847: Gilbert finally concludes the letter.

I love the ending of the diary—taking it to almost the exact moment Gilbert’s narrative starts. And he says exactly that, with typical Gilbert narcissism:

(HELEN’S DIARY’S LAST ENTRY) November 3rd.—I have made some further acquaintance with my neighbours. The fine gentleman and beau of the parish and its vicinity (in his own estimation, at least) is a young . . . .

* * * * *

(GILBERT RESUMING HIS LETTER) Here it ended. The rest was torn away. How cruel, just when she was going to mention me! for I could not doubt it was your humble servant she was about to mention, though not very favourably, of course. I could tell that, as well by those few words as by the recollection of her whole aspect and demeanour towards me in the commencement of our acquaintance. Well! I could readily forgive her prejudice against me, and her hard thoughts of our sex in general, when I saw to what brilliant specimens her experience had been limited.

 Now I have to say the epistolary frame of the letter and diary here requires a big suspension of disbelief. I mean, I know the Victorians were avid letter writers, but we are expected to believe that one day Gilbert, having received this request from his friend, would sit down and write 170,000 words in response. And the diary! I gather he still has access to this multi-chapter diary, and now transcribes every word to his friend.

Sometimes the Victorians just got tangled up in their own contrivances. At least this extremely but leisurely long session at the pen evaded Richardson’s “I write as I bleed” technique, which had Clarissa writing frantically even as she is dodging into a closet to escape Lovelace’s assaults.

Still the alternation between the letter and the diary does present a rather modern effect of dual first-person narrations, and also explores the limitations of viewpoint. Gilbert’s letters most indict him for naivete and prejudice as he explains his misguided assumption that she is a kept woman. As I read, I often want to yell at this clueless fellow Gilbert almost as if I am the recipient of his letter. “Gilbert, you IDIOT! Don’t you realize she’s trying to tell you—”

But the older Gilbert, as he writes them, betrays little hint that he now knows better. That sort of interactivity is part of the appeal of eavesdropping on others’ conversation (however one-sided, as in this case).

So why the complicated dual-time structure? Why have Gilbert writing from the future if he’s not really reflecting enough (for my taste) on his previous idiocy?

Next post, I’ll discuss how Anne Bronte makes brilliant use of the complex epistolary form to subvert the romance novel plot (from Gilbert’s telling) and create a powerful feminist heroine and also indict the institution of marriage and marital laws.