Have you heard of Anne Brontë You might be more familiar with Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Anne’s older sisters, the renowned authors of Jane Eyre (1847) and Wuthering Heights (1847) respectively. But what about Anne? She is sometimes presented as the least talented member of the family, or even as Margaret Lane (1980) commented, ‘a Brontë without genius’. The year 2020 marks the bicentenary of her birth, and this offers an opportunity not only to rediscover the works of this underrated author but to challenge the erroneous image we might still have of her today.
Anne was born to the Reverend Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria, on 17 January 1820 in Thornton, Yorkshire. She was the youngest of six children, joining Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell and Emily. The family moved to what is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth a few months after Anne’s birth. Tragically, however, almost as soon as they got there, Anne’s mother became ill. She died of uterine cancer in 1821 before Anne was even two. Soon after, Anne’s eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, contracted tuberculosis and they died too, just a few years later in 1825.
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