Anne Brontë was born on January 17, 1820, in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. Sister to better known novelists, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, she is best known as the author of Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Raised in a strict Anglican home by her clergyman father and her religious aunt after her mother and two eldest siblings died, she was largely educated at home and worked as a governess for a several years between 1839 and 1845, before returning to Haworth Parsonage to spend her remaining years next to her father, brother and two sisters. While working at Thorp Green Hall, she had the chance to study the behaviour and relationships of English aristocracy and their social surroundings and grow her understanding of human nature.
Anne and Emily are known to have collaborated in writing poems and the story of an imaginary North Pacific island called Gondal starting as early as 1831. Although none of the writings relating to the actual saga have survived to date, a manuscript containing Gondal poetry is in the possession of the British Library.
Anne published her first novel, Agnes Grey, in 1847, and her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in 1848. She fell ill with tuberculosis toward the end of the year and died the following May.
In her works, Anne Brontë focuses on morality and the laws that drive human behaviour. She is more interested in the actions of her characters than the reason or motivation behind them. Her works contrast those of her sisters Charlotte and Emily in that her male characters are gentle and show their love and affection with actions rather than violence, abuse and domination. It is very likely that Anne’s resentment of violence arises from her refusal to accept her brother Bramwell’s alcoholism and early death in 1848.
