I just finished Agnes Grey and I think Anne’s writing deserves just as much acclaim as Charlotte and Emily’s! Agnes and Mr. Weston’s relationship is definitely healthier than Cathy and Heathcliff’s or Jane and Mr. Rochester’s. And the scene where Agnes’s mother turned down her elite family attempt to reclaim her after they disowned her for marrying Agnes and Mary’s father is just *chef’s kiss*! I just love the Brontë sisters!
by Miss_Mercury_5
27 Comments
Sounds fantastic! I just looked it up and the focus on animals sounds interesting too! Just added it to my list
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is fantastic too!
“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” is such a sleeper for the readers who typically hyper focus on Charlotte’s and Emily’s works. One the trailblazers of feminist fiction.
Completely agree. All the sisters have something different to offer readers. You can’t go wrong!
These sisters are the real great witches of human history, changing the course of how all humanity views women forever.
I took a class on the Bronte’s for my BA in Lit and I remain a die-hard Charlotte stan, but give Tenant of Wildfell Hall a try- it’s a little bit bonkers (not like, *Emily* bonkers) but a good one.
Best Bronte imo
When I was in senior comp in high school I wanted to write a comparison of the Brontë sisters for a paper. I asked the teacher to help me find one of Anne’s book the teacher lost it because Anne hadn’t written any (I knew she had) but alas it was pre internet so I couldn’t prove it. So ha. I now have it on order (I did confirm it years ago but never actually ordered the book to read it until today).
I agree. Anne is my favorite of the three sisters.
Yes! She’s my favorite Brontë.
I cannot recommend The Tenant of Wildfell Hall enough! I couldn’t believe it was by the most forgotten Brontë sister.
Underrated doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Huh, I didn’t enjoy Agnes Grey, it’s quite similar to The Professor. I have high hopes for the Tenant of Wildfell Hall though.
Agreed! I love them all.
Obligatory: http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/brontessm.png
RIGHT? people so often laud charlotte as the prolific writer and emily as the genius that they completely forget anne exists. agnes grey was decent imo but it was the tenant of wildfell hall that really swept me away- it was so revolutionary and ahead of its time and it was so forward thinking. i honestly hate charlotte now seeing she all but tried to prevent reprintings of it just cos she couldn’t have come up with anything stellar as that 🙄🙄🙄
Tim Powers just released a fun book on the Brontë sisters called My Brother’s Keeper with his unique style of weaving a supernatural thread into actual biography. He did the same with Romantic poets in The Stress of Her Regard and the cold war in Declare.
Anne’s books are much easier to read than her sisters’ with more realism. Her language is easier with minimal Northern England dialect or French. Love both Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Agnes Grey is a perfect book for a relaxing Sunday afternoon in Autumn when you follow the eponymous girl through her governess journey which the author drew from her own experience as a governess. It’s such an easy, lighthearted and enjoyable read. I recommend reading this before Jane Eyre as the latter drew inspiration from the former, is lengthier and overall conveys more passion than the former.
In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the mood is more sombre and theme deeper and more serious. In contrast to the single narrator in Agnes Grey, The Tenant is narrated by two persons, namely Gilbert Graham (though his letters to his brother-in-law) and Helen Huntington (through her diary), so the reader gets to know the side characters from two different neighbourhoods and see various interactions between them and Gilbert/Helen.
Of the Brontë siblings, I have recently read (in this order):
1. Wuthering Heights (Emily)
2. Agnes Grey (Anne)
3. Jane Eyre (Charlotte)
4. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne)
The remaining books in my TBR are the following (to be read in this order):
1. (5.) The Professor (Charlotte)
2. (6.) Shirley (Charlotte)
3. (7.) Villette (Charlotte)
4. (8.) Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: Selected Writings (The Brontës)
5. (9.) The Green Dwarf and Other Early Fiction (Charlotte)
6. (10.) Selected Letters (Charlotte)
7. (11.) The Complete Poems (Emily)
Yes a total of 11 books by the Brontës. 7 more to go!
I always feel sorry for Anne. She was the only Bronte sibling who actually managed to hold down a job for any length of time, and then she lost it because of her brother. (Branwell came on as a tutor to the same family where she was the governess, and then proceeded to have an affair with the lady of the house.) She also seems to have had much more healthy ideas of relationships and boundaries than her sisters, but her work was always overlooked in favor of theirs.
I like Anne’s books, too. As much as the movie versions of Wuthering Heights are great (Looking at you, Laurence Olivier!), I truly hate how the book begins and the loooong leadup to when you start to hear the story. And you kind of hate both Heathcliff AND Cathy by the end! Similarly, anything by Charlotte that’s not Jane Eyre is a snooze. Tried Villette, etc.
I got to visit the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, England and it was quite a trip, thinking: “The Bronte sisters touched THIS VERY HANDRAIL”. Also they had the teensy books the sisters and Branwell made, as well as a framed piece with locks of everyone’s hair. I mean, they had the two sisters who died at what became ‘Lowood’, they had Branwell’s hair, Charlotte’s and Emily’s.
But not Anne’s. She died at Scarborough and I guess no one thought to save any of her hair. For some reason, that has stayed with me, and saddened me.
i feel the same way. I am someone that had a hard time getting into classics but when I tried reading ‘Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ on Wattpad i was shocked by how much of a quick read it was. The chapters aren’t too long. Minus the letter POVs switching and how it can get wordy and stale at times, it also has entertaining and significant memorable moments.
The character Helen was so ahead of her time it could have been written in the 21st century.
I am quite disappointed in how underrated she is.
The novel definitely gives me more of a Jane Austen vibe and could have reached a more wider demographic.
Underrated? She’s still in print almost 200 years after her death.
Very true
I always tell ppl that Anne is my favourite Brontë and I LOVE “Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, it’s my favourite of al the Brontë novels.
She’s fantastic and totally underrated.
I wholeheartedly agree! I have a soft spot for Jane Eyre, but Agnes Grey and Tenant of Wildfell Hall are my favourite works from the Brontë sisters!
The Brontes are brilliant, though I’m not sure why it’s a plus for a fictional relationship to be “healthy.” That strikes me as a Victorian moralistic expectation of art: “We must reflect in art what’s proper and sound, otherwise we’ll be modeling bad behaviors for the impressionable.”
Part of the lasting brilliance of the Brontes is that they didn’t restrict their stories to those moral conventions.