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View Full Version : Who was the model for Mr Huntingdon?



kev67
04-11-2016, 01:49 PM
I finished reading Tenant of Wildfell Hall yesterday. I wondered how much Anne based Mr Huntingdon and his drunken friends on their brother Branwell or whether there were other models. The deathbed scenes are very painful, and I suspect Anne was remembering Bramwell here. Branwell was an alcoholic, but he was not married, so where would Anne Bronte have witnessed the marital discord? Although Branwell was an alcoholic, I doubt he was allowed to bring friends back to the vicarage for drunken parties. Anne writes these scenes so vividly, I think she must have witnessed much of the behaviour she described.

Danik 2016
04-11-2016, 02:31 PM
Another possible source for Mr Huntington was her married employer Mr Robinson, the master from Thorp Green Hall, where Anne worked as a governess from 1840-1845. Anne ficionalizes this period of life in the novel Agnes Grey and her account of her employer´s family is very negative. She probably had many ooportunities of observing her employers and their friends. Much as I love the books of her sisters, Anne´s acconts of the landed gentry seems much more realistic to me than theirs.
However this is only a supposition, as the letters that Anne supposedly wrote during her stay at the manor where not preserved.