Anne Brontë

Biography

Anne Brontë (1820–1849) was an English novelist and poet, the youngest of the three Brontë sisters. Born in Thornton, Yorkshire, she grew up in the isolated parsonage at Haworth alongside Charlotte and Emily. Anne worked as a governess, an experience that deeply informed her fiction. Her first novel, Agnes Grey (1847), drew directly on her governess years. Her second and final novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), was a groundbreaking work addressing alcoholism, domestic abuse, and a woman’s right to leave a destructive marriage—radical themes for the Victorian era. Anne wrote under the pseudonym Acton Bell. She died of tuberculosis at age 29 in Scarborough. Though often overshadowed by her sisters, Anne’s work is increasingly recognized for its feminist themes and unflinching social realism.