Anne Brontë: Life and career of Yorkshire author and poet who was born 205 years ago and known for writing one of the first feminist books The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Anne Brontë was a Yorkshire novelist and poet who was the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.

She published a book of poems with her sisters and later two books initially under the pen name Action Bell.

Her first book Agnes Grey was published in 1847 at the same time Wuthering Heights was published by her sister Emily Brontë. Her second novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was regarded as one of the first feminist books.

Early life of Anne Brontë

Anne was born on January 17, 1820, in Thornton, now known as the Brontë Birthplace, and was the daughter of Maria and Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England.

She lived most of her life in Haworth, where her family moved in April 1820 and also attended a boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837.

Between 1839 and 1845 she lived elsewhere working as a governess and was the youngest of the Brontë children.

The Brontë children were looked after by Maria’s sister, Elizabeth Branwell, after she died in 1821. She was strict and expected respect rather than love. There was not much affection between her and the older children and according to historic accounts, Anne was her favourite.

Anne was remembered as being precocious by her dad, who said that when Anne was four years old, he had asked her what a child most wanted and she had said: “age and experience”.

Most of her studies took place at home including music and drawing and the Keighley church organist taught Anne how to play the piano.

The girls were taught how to run a household by their aunt, but they preferred literature and they read many books from their father’s well-maintained library including the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Scott, articles from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and Fraser’s Magazine and The Edinburgh Review, and miscellaneous books about history, geography and biography.

Their reading strengthened their imaginations and creativity which especially boosted after their father gave Branwell a set of toy soldiers in June 1826.

Their fantasy world’s characters and lands were given newspapers, magazines and chronicles written in tiny books with writing so tiny that it was difficult to read without a magnifying glass.

Anne and Emily were especially close, especially after Charlotte left for Roe Head School in January 1831 and Charlotte’s friend Ellen Nussey who visited Haworth in 1833, reported that Emily and Anne were “like twins” and “inseparable companions”.

When Anne started going to school and being taught by her sister Charlotte at the age of 15, it was her first time away from home and she made a few friends at Roe Head. Whilst she was quiet, she was also hardworking and determined to stay to get the education she needed to support herself.

She stayed at the school for two years and also won a good-conduct medal in December 1836.

Early career of Anne Brontë

A year after leaving the school at the age of 19, Anne was looking for a teaching job as she needed to earn money.

Her father had no private income and the parsonage would revert to the church following his death.

Teaching or working as a governess were among the few options for a poor and educated woman at the time.

In April 1839, Anne began working as a governess for the Ingham family at Blake Hall, near Mirfield.

She had great difficulty controlling the children of the house who were spoiled and disobedient and was not allowed to punish them. When she complained about their behaviour, she received no support and was criticised for being incapable.

Due to their difficult personalities, Anne had little success in educating them and the Inghams were unhappy with their children’s progress, so they dismissed Anne.

She struck up an acquaintance with her father’s curate William Weightman when she returned to Haworth, who started working at the parish in August 1839.

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Around the time of their friendship, she began writing a number of poems, which may suggest she fell in love with him, however, there is disagreement over this.

She returned home in 1839 at Christmas where Charlotte and Emily were, who had left their positions.

Anne’s experience at Blake Hall was so traumatic that she penned it down in perfect detail in her first novel Agnes Grey. She portrayed the character of Edward Weston similar to that of William such as his easy humour and kindness towards the sisters, good looking and engaging.

In the same year, Weightman died of cholera and Anne expressed her grief for his death in her poem I Will Not Mourn Thee, Lovely One, in which she called him “our darling”.

For five years from 1840, Anne worked at Thorp Green Hall, a comfortable country house near York where she was governess to the children of the Reverend Edmund Robinson and his wife, Lydia.

The house was depicted as Horton Lodge in Agnes Grey and had four pupils: Lydia (15), Elizabeth (13), Mary (12), and Edmund (8). Despite having similar issues here as when she was working at Blake Hall, Anne was determined to succeed and ended up being well-liked by her employers and her charges, the Robinson girls, became lifelong friends of hers.

She worked alongside her brother Branwell, who had an affair with his employer’s wife, Lydia, and in June 1845, Anne resigned and returned home.

A book of poems by the Brontë sisters

It was Anne’s older sister, Charlotte, who saw potential in her sisters’ poems and encouraged them to publish their poems collectively in secret.

With money from Elizabeth Branwell, they paid for publication of a collection of poems, 21 from Anne, 21 from Emily and 19 from Charlotte and told nobody of their plans.

The book was published under pen names which retained their initials but hid their sex; Anne’s pseudonym was Acton Bell, Charlotte’s pen name was Currer and Emily’s pen name was Ellis.

Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell was available for sale in May 1846 and the cost of the publication was £31 and 10 shillings, which was about three-quarters of Anne’s salary at Thorp Green.

The book achieved three favourable reviews but it didn’t do well commercially, with only two copies sold in the first year.

Agnes Grey

By July 1846, a package containing the manuscripts of each sister’s first novels were making the rounds of London publishers. Charlotte had written The Professor, Emily had written Wuthering Heights, and Anne had written Agnes Grey.

Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were rejected a few times before they were published by Thomas Cautley Newby.

Anne and Emily’s publisher was so shocked by the success of Charlotte’s second book Jane Eyre that they published Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey together in December 1847. They sold well, but Agnes Grey was outshone by Emily’s more dramatic Wuthering Heights.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Anne’s second novel was published in the last week of June 1848 and it challenged contemporary social and legal structures.

It follows the journey of the female lead Helen Huntingdon who left her husband to protect their son from his influence. She supports herself and her son in secret by painting. She has violated social conventions and English law.

A married woman had no legal existence independent from her husband and could not own property, sue for divorce or control the custody of her children until the Married Women’s Property Act 1870 was passed. Helen’s husband had a right to reclaim her and charge her with kidnapping. She was stealing her husband’s property by subsisting on her own income, since this income was legally his.

It prompted criticism from readers, including her sister Charlotte, who questioned the graphic and disturbing portrayal of Huntingdon, but Anne forcefully stood by this.

Anne “wished to tell the truth” and said: “When we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear.

“To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers?

“O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts – this whispering 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.”

She also confronted reviewers who speculated on the sex of authors and perceived “appropriateness” of their writing.

Anne said: “[I am] satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.

“All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”

As such, this book is considered to be one of the first feminist novels and the Brontë sisters are regarded by many literary experts as ahead of their time.

Anne died at the age of 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis and after her death, Charlotte edited Agnes Grey to fix issues with its first edition, but prevented republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As a result, Anne is not as well known as her sisters, however, both of her books are considered classics of English literature.