I. Anne Bronte’s Life

 

Anne was born on 17 January 1820. She is the youngest child of Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell Bronte. Her mother died when she was only a year old, and when the two oldest siblings died of consumption in 1825, Anne was really too young to remember. She and Emily were especially close, writing together on their imaginary world of Gondal, a kingdom mostly separate from Angria, which Charlotte and brother Branwell wrote about. Like all the Bronte sisters, Anne was rather too dependent on these imaginary writings, but she had a strong sense of family duty. So she went away to school, where there was no time for such flights of fancy, and trained as a governess. Her health was not terribly good, but she persevered. In May of 1840, she went as governess to the home of the Reverend Edmund Robinson, where she would work for some years.

In 1843, Branwell went with Anne to the Robinsons' to act as tutor to the older boys of the family. When Branwell was dismissed in disgrace about two years later, Anne resigned her post, feeling that was the only proper thing to do. Though she was apparently glad to leave the post, she was depressed over the uncertainty of her future. The publication of the sisters' Poems in May 1846 was quite a bright spot for her, even though they didn't sell very well. Still, this publication encouraged all of them to write novels for publication, Anne's contribution being Agnes Grey. This novel, like Emily's Wuthering Heights, was published right after Jane Eyre in hopes of cashing in on that novel's success. Anne was at least optimistic enough to write a second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

When Branwell died in September of 1848, it was Anne who took over many of the necessary arrangements, as Charlotte had taken ill. When Emily died of consumption three months later, Charlotte was the pillar of strength, as Anne herself was beginning to feel the first symptoms of her own fatal illness. The only thing that cheered her was the quiet but noticeable success of her poems in various literary magazines. When she was told that she, too, had consumption, in January of 1849, she nearly broke down completely under the weight of illness and her own religious doubts, but hid her panic from her family, still reeling from the two previous losses. Using a legacy from Anne's recently-diseased godmother, Charlotte took her to the seaside (which she loved) in hopes of a cure. She died at Scarborough on 28 May 1849; her last words being, "Take courage, Charlotte, take courage."