Great Lives

Anne Brontë

1820–1849 · English novelist and poet, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, author of Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Writers & Poets19th Century

Anne Brontë was born in 1820 in Thornton, Yorkshire, the youngest child of the clergyman Patrick Brontë, and grew up at the parsonage in Haworth with her sisters Charlotte and Emily and her brother Branwell. Their mother died when Anne was a baby, and the children invented imaginary kingdoms and wrote stories about them; Anne and Emily created a world called Gondal. Anne worked as a governess for several years, including five years with the Robinson family at Thorp Green Hall, experiences that shaped her first novel, Agnes Grey. In 1846 the three sisters published a book of poems under the names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, Anne being Acton. Agnes Grey appeared in 1847, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), about a woman who leaves her drunken husband, sold well and caused controversy. Anne fell ill with tuberculosis after the deaths of Branwell and Emily, and she died in Scarborough in 1849, at the age of 29.

Anne Brontë is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Her novel sets against Calvinist predestination the Arminian belief that no soul shall be ultimately lost. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Anne Brontë by Branwell Brontë
Anne Brontë by Branwell Brontë Source · Public domain

Key dates

  • 1820 Born in Thornton, Yorkshire
  • 1846 Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
  • 1847 Agnes Grey published
  • 1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall published
  • 1849 Dies in Scarborough

See where they lived

Official museums and historic homes we don’t run. Follow each site’s link for learning resources and current visiting information.

  • Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë grew up and wrote in the parsonage at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. The Brontë Parsonage Museum still stands there and welcomes learning visits for schools and families.

    Brontë Parsonage Museum — learning visits

Fun facts

  • In 1826 her father gave her brother Branwell a set of toy soldiers. Anne and her sisters shared them and made up stories about them, which grew into their imaginary worlds. (Source: Anne Brontë (Wikipedia))

Read about them

Grades 9–12

More lives

Edwin A. Abbott · Jane Addams · Louisa May Alcott · Hans Christian Andersen · Jane Austen · Honoré de Balzac