Anne Brontë

Anne Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; 17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet. A member of the Brontë literary family, she was the younger sister of Charlotte, Emily, and Branwell. Anne is known for her 1847 novel Agnes Grey and for her 1848 novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first feminist novels.

Anne was the last of six children born to Maria Brontë (née Branwell), the daughter of a Cornish merchant, and Patrick Brontë, an Irish clergyman. Her mother died when Anne was one year old, and her two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died when she was four. She lived most of her life with her father and three surviving siblings in Haworth, Yorkshire, where her father served as perpetual curate, leaving to attend boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837 and to work as a governess for a number of families between 1839 and 1845. In 1846, she and her sisters, Charlotte and Emily, published a book of poetry, writing under the pseudonyms Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell. Anne's first novel, Agnes Grey, was published as one of a three-volume set which also included Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published a year later.

Anne died aged 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis. After her death, her sister Charlotte wrote a preface and explanatory notice to the new edition of Agnes Grey, but prevented republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, believing it to be "a mistake." This decision harmed Anne's popularity as a writer. Nonetheless, both of her novels are now considered classics of English literature.