Gilbert Markham meets a mysterious young widow, calling herself Helen Graham, who arrives with her young son and a servant to Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years. Contrary to the early 19th-century norms, she pursues an artist's career and makes an income by selling her pictures. Her strict seclusion soon gives rise to gossip in the neighbouring village and she becomes a social outcast. Gilbert comes to understand that she has fled with her son, whom she desperately wishes to save from his father's influence.
