Anne Brontë is probably the least known of the famous Brontë literary family. Her novels have not received the same critical attention as those of her sisters Emily and Charlotte. She was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England in 1820 and died of tuberculosis at the age of 29.
Like her sisters, Anne began to write during her childhood. She was particularly close to Emily, and together they created the imaginary world of Gondal. From an early age she wished to be a published author. Anne Brontë used her writing to critique the social conditions for women. A major theme in her writing is the double standard applied to the behaviour of men and women.
Anne wrote under the pseudonym of Acton Bell, a deliberately ambiguous name used to disguise her gender. Anne Brontë’s writing is characterised by her attention to exact detail. At first she considered her talents to be more suited to biography, but instead produced two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), and she also wrote poetry.
Critics have been slow to recognise the literary worth of Anne Brontë’s work, though her books were widely read in her lifetime. She was often thought to be the lesser talent of the Brontë family, though recent criticism challenges this. Her work is quite different to that of Emily and Charlotte. Her novels have been described as didactic and containing a strong religious influence. Evidence of this is most apparent in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, where the narrative supports her own Methodist doctrine.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall uses realist narrative techniques and raises similar issues to Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The story is about a young woman’s struggle for freedom from a violent drunkard husband. She seeks refuge at Wildfell Hall where a local farmer falls in love with her. The narrative argues for gender equality, and uses the genre of romance to speak about social justice and suffrage. The character of the drunkard husband is reputed to be a portrait of her brother Branwell during his decline into a breakdown. The unusual narrative structure of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has received recent critical attention. The structure is an original one, comprising of one narrator’s diary within another narrator’s letters. The structure of Agnes Grey, however, is less complex.
Agnes Grey is the story of a governess (Anne was a governess herself), and is a classic story of a young woman’s coming of age. This novel is a critique of class life, and is set in a manor house in the English moors. It deals with the relationship between the self and the world, and is an example of Anne Brontë’s capacity for insightful observations.