The Novelist of Wildfell Hall

In this landmark new biography, the leading critic Edward Chitham offers a contemporary account of the life and work of the English novelist and poet Anne Bront (1820-49), the youngest member of the Bront literary family. / She published her two world-famed novels, initially under the pen name Acton Bell: Agnes Grey (1847), and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), one of the first feminist novels. There she tackled fundamental problems, notably the role and place of women in Victorian society. / Anne was the daughter of Patrick Bront , a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England. She lived most of her life with her family at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. In 1846 she published a book of poems with her sisters. She had five siblings. Edward Chitham shows that she was in several ways very different. Her writing style was her own, and her novels stand out as unique literary achievements. Anne was close to her Wesleyan aunt, who encouraged her religious feeing as well as her right to