January 17, 2020

Today, January 17, marks 200 years since the birth of the English writer Anne Brontë in 1820. Anne was the youngest and least-known of the literary Brontë sisters. She may have been overshadowed by her older sisters, but both Anne’s novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), are considered classic of English literature.

This painting of the Brontë sisters shows Anne, left, Emily, center, and Charlotte, right. Credit: The Granger Collection

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Anne’s 200th birthday is being celebrated by Brontë200, a program run by the the Brontë Society and the Brontë Parsonage Museum (at the Brontë family home in Haworth, a village in West Yorkshire). A special exhibit, “Anne Brontë: Amid the brave and strong,” is currently at the museum, and a number of Anne Brontë-themed literary lectures and art exhibits are also taking place. Anne’s bicentennial is the final leg of Brontë200, which also marked the 200th birthdays of her sisters Charlotte (in 2016) and Emily (in 2018).

Anne, Charlotte, and Emily (and three other siblings) were brought up by their father, Patrick, and their Aunt Elizabeth, who moved in after the children’s mother died in 1821. The sisters went to several boarding schools, where they received a better education than was usual for girls at that time. But the school atmosphere was harsh.

Few jobs were available for women at that time. The Brontë sisters, except for occasional jobs as governesses or schoolteachers, lived their entire lives at home. They were shy, poor, and lonely. They occupied themselves with music, drawing, reading, and—above all—writing. Their isolation led to the early development of their imaginations. In 1846, under the masculine pen names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the sisters published a joint volume of poems. Although only two copies were sold, all three sisters soon had their first novels published.

Charlotte Brontë wrote four novels, the most famous of which is Jane Eyre (1847), before dying at age 38 in 1855. Emily Brontë wrote the famous novel Wuthering Heights (1847) before she died at age 30 in 1848. Anne also died young, probably of tuberculosis, at age 29 in 1849.