Anne Brontë

English novelist and poet, the youngest of the three Brontë sisters. Author of the novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, as well as a number of poems.

Compared with the fame of her elder sisters—Charlotte, the author of four novels, including Jane Eyre, and Emily, who wrote Wuthering Heights—Anne Brontë’s literary renown is modest. The main reason for this is generally considered to be that after the death of her younger sister Charlotte banned further publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, a work that caused a wide public response. Both of Anne’s books, marked by realism and irony, differ fundamentally from the romantic works of her sisters, but, like Charlotte’s and Emily’s novels, they became classics of English literature.

Anne was the youngest of the six Brontë children. She was not yet two years old when her mother died in September 1821, and her mother’s elder sister, Elizabeth Branwell, took charge of the orphaned family. Anne was her aunt’s favorite, and her bedroom served as the child’s nursery throughout her childhood. Anne was an asthmatic, frail girl, but serious and deeply religious.

The Reverend Patrick Brontë, the head of the family, was a Protestant clergyman of the Church of England. Aunt Branwell was a Methodist, a follower of John Wesley. Between these religious differences, Anne was constantly torn, and eventually fell seriously ill in 1837.

Wanting a better future for his daughters, Patrick Brontë wanted them to receive a proper education that would help them earn a living independently. For this purpose he chose training as a governess, one of the few professions available at the time to an educated woman. Anne studied at Roe Head School near Dewsbury for only a couple of years, from 1835 to 1837, when her elder sister Charlotte had already begun teaching there. She received the rest of her education at home, studying with her aunt and with Charlotte, and enjoying the rare moments when her father could read to her aloud.

Anne managed to work in two households as a governess: with the Ingham family at Blake Hall near Mirfield, and with the Robinson family at Thorpe Green near York, in 1840–45. She found the work oppressive and crude.