Sometimes, when we make the decision to walk the path that is not walked by everyone else, we make history, even if we don’t know it at the time.
Anne Bronte was born on this day in 1820. The youngest of Patrick and Maria Bronte’s six children, she died at the young age of 29. In her lifetime, she completed two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall.
While she is often not given the respect and name recognition that goes to her elder sisters, Charlotte and Emily, her writing is on par with her sisters. Writing about every day life in Victorian England, her writing stands out because she spoke of the truth of what it was to be a woman in the period. In Agnes Grey, she wrote about a woman whose respectable career choices were severely limited and must work as a governess to support herself and her family. Agnes’s charges are spoiled and their parents are apathetic to their children’s behavior. In Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, a woman arrives in a small rural town, presenting herself as a widow with a young son. The truth about her identity made a small, but important dent in the worldwide women’s movement that is still being felt today.
As a writer and a proto-feminist, Anne Bronte, along with her sisters, helped to pave the way for women and women writers that continues to be felt a century and a half after her untimely passing.
Wherever you are, Anne Bronte, happy birthday.
Writergurlny 