Country Life

The forgotten Brontë sister

PITY poor Anne Brontë, the youngest, overshadowed and least read of the Brontë sisters. Regarded rather as the runt of the literary litter, Anne, like the last born in many large families, has always needed to elbow her siblings aside for the attention that is her due. It is her fate that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, one of the first great feminist novels, is inevitably shelved alongside Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, two of the greatest novels ever written.

Anne was born on January 17, 1820, the sixth and final child of her Cornish mother, Maria Branwell, and Irish

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Country Life

Country Life6 min read
Where The Wild Things Are
WILDLIFE painting fills an important space in the human heart. Unlike other genres that are often regarded as superior, it has no overt message; not religious or revolutionary, political or patriotic, not angst-ridden, fashionable or sophisticated. H
Country Life5 min read
Wedding Belles
THE vast, Grade I-listed Jacobean Dorfold Hall, just outside the market town of Nantwich in Cheshire, was built, so the story goes, for a visit by James I. Completed in 1621, the property and its surrounding estate of 101 acres have been in the home
Country Life5 min read
Escape To The Hills
THE expansive hills of England’s most wooded county have long attracted those who want to live in the countryside, yet be within a taxi ride of the capital, which is possible to do from these four Surrey houses currently on the market. Anyone heading

Related Books & Audiobooks