Category: Classics

Lifespan:

Anne Brontë (January 17, 1820 – May 28, 1849)
Charlotte Brontë (April 21, 1816 – March 31, 1855)
Emily Brontë (July 30, 1818 – December 19, 1848)

Interesting & Unique Facts: The Brontës were three English sisters who all wrote novels and poetry. They were daughters of Reverend Patrick Brontë. They grew up in Haworth, near Keighley in West Yorkshire and survived their mother and two elder sisters into adulthood.

They wrote compulsively from early childhood and were first published, at their own expense, in 1846 as poets under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Anne Brontë (Acton Bell) is the youngest of the three Brontë sisters. She is famous for writing Agnes Grey.
Anne died at the age of 29 of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Charlotte Brontë (Currer Bell) is the eldest of the sisters and her novel Jane Eyre is considered one of the greatest English novels ever written. Charlotte Brontë wrote the most out of the three sisters and started several novels that she never finished. They include The Moores, and Emma. The first biography of Charlotte was written by her friend Elizabeth Gaskell and published in 1857. It helped create the myth of a doomed family living in romantic solitude.

Emily Brontë (Ellis Bell) is famous for writing Wuthering Heights, which was her only novel. It was the discovery of Emily's poetic talent by Charlotte that led her and her sisters to publish a joint collection of their poetry in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Brontës

Author's work in order (with publication dates):

Anne Brontë

• Agnes Grey (1847)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Charlotte Brontë

• Jane Eyre (1847)
• Shirley (1849)
• Villette (1853)
• The Professor (1857) [written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, was published posthumously]

Emily Brontë

• Wuthering Heights (1847)