Anne Brontë: pseudonym Acton Bell. Born at Thornton, Yorkshire, England, 1820; died at Scarborough, England, May 28, 1849. An English novelist and poet, sister of Charlotte Brontë. She wrote “Agnes Grey” (1847), “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” (1848), and “Poems” (1846, by “Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell”).

Personal

  It is a wind-swept resting-place, well within sight and sound of the sea. St. Mary’s is the parish church for Scarborough, and its exact location is at one side of the rocky acclivity that separates the two “bays.” It is a hoary old edifice in a hoary old setting. The one atom of “newness” that I could discern—i. e., the obvious fact that the stone marking the tomb of “the gentlest and least assertive of the three sisters” had lately been repainted a startling white—jarred upon me not a little. The black now stands out wonderfully clear and distinct in the awfulness of its simplicity—

	HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF
	ANNE BRONTË,
	Daughter of The Rev. P. Brontë,
	Incumbent of Haworth, Yorkshire,
	She Died, Aged 28, May 28th, 1849….

In her death as in her life, Anne Brontë was one of the exceptions. She alone of the Brontë daughters was not borne from the Rectory to the churchyard at Haworth by that melancholy doorway which was “reserved for the passage of the dead.” Instead, she sleeps by the side of the never resting surge.

General

  The “Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” which deserves perhaps a little more notice and recognition than it has ever received. It is ludicrously weak, palpably unreal, and apparently imitative, whenever it reminds the reader that it was written by a sister of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, but as a study of utterly flaccid and invertebrate immorality it bears signs of more faithful transcription from life than anything in “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights.”

  Anne was not in any sense a writer of genius. Her “Agnes Grey” was succeeded by “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” but neither of these stories exhibits special powers.

  It can scarcely be doubted that Anne Brontë’s two novels, “Agnes Grey” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” would have long since fallen into oblivion but for the inevitable association with the romances of her two greater sisters…. It is not generally known that “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” went into a second edition the same year; and I should have pronounced it incredible, were not a copy of the later issue in my possession, and Anne Brontë had actually written a preface to this edition. The fact is entirely ignored in the correspondence. The preface in question makes it quite clear, if any evidence of that were necessary, that Anne had her brother in mind in writing the book. “I could not be understood to suppose,” she says, “that the proceedings of the unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate companions I have here introduced, are a specimen of the common practices of society: the case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I knew that such characters do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my heroine, the book has not been written in vain.” “One word more and I have done,” she continues. “Respecting the author’s identity, I would have it to be distinctly understood that Acton Bell is neither Currer nor Ellis Bell, and, therefore, let not his faults be attributed to them. As to whether the name is real or fictitious, it cannot greatly signify to those who know him only by his works.”

  As for the gentle Anne, she remains—well, just the gentle Anne—pious, patient and trustful. Her talent was of that evangelical, pietistic type which never lacks a certain gracefulness and never rises above a certain intellectual level. Had she lived in our day her novels would have attracted little attention, and her poetry would hardly have found admission into any first-class magazine. It remains clear as ever that her immortality is due to her sisters. Upon those bright twin-stars many telescopes are turned, and then there swims into the beholder’s view this third, mild-shining star of the tenth magnitude, which otherwise would have remained invisible. It follows that Anne will always have a place assigned her in the chart of the literary heavens. Nothing, however, is ever likely to occur either to heighten our estimate of her literary ability or to lessen the affection which her character inspires.

  It will be convenient to take the work of the three sisters in the reverse order. That of Anne Brontë may be speedily dismissed. She was a gentle, delicate creature both in mind and body; and but for her greater sisters her writings would now be forgotten. Her pleasing but commonplace tale of “Agnes Grey” was followed by “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” in which she attempted, without success, to depict a profligate.