I, like a lot of people, came to the Bronte's via Jane Eyre and the poetry of Emily. Anne was always the sister I didn't turn to to read. After reading this book by Samantha Ellis, I'm inspired to pick up Anne's work and give her the time she deserves.

I was initially interested in reading this book, however my tastes have shifted and I do not think I will be able to get to it now. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a digital copy!

Samantha Ellis' How To Be A Heroine was my favourite read of 2014.  It still sits on my Favourite Books Shelf.  I was however surprised to discover several years later that she was writing a book on Anne Brontë as the opening pages of Heroine see Ellis confess to being a lifelong Emily and Heathcliff fan.  The book then sees her decide that Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre offers a better role model for life.  Anne did not get much of a look in.  Clearly some kind of conversion experience had occurred in the intervening period.  It is but seldom that a favourite author takes on one's favourite Brontë so I knew immediately that Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life was going to be a hit.  Not only that though, it was one of my favourite reads of Brooding about the Brontës.  

Ellis confesses to having long believed in the popular view of Anne as a 'virginal Victorian spinster, sweet and stoic, selfless and sexless, achieving very little before wasting away at twenty-nine'.  Famed for a death scene akin to that of Dickens' Little Nell, Anne was described by her sister Charlotte to have been preparing for an early death since childhood.  For Ellis, Anne Brontë had as much gusto as Beth March from Little Women.  Basically, she was boring.  But then a chance encounter with the Brontë archive and the opportunity to read the last letter that Anne wrote before her death prompted Ellis to see the woman in a different light.

Having read Anne's last letter myself, it is a very poignant piece.  The idea of holding it in one's hand must have added a particular power.  Anne wrote the letter five weeks before her death, desperately ill with the tuberculosis that would claim her life.  Ellis describes how her writing was 'achingly neat', particularly important given that she was cross-writing.  But more than that, Anne's letter was an act of defiance.  Her sister Charlotte had already been in touch with Ellen Nussey before to instruct her to refuse Anne's request to accompany her to Scarborough and now Anne was writing to convince Ellen to do otherwise.  However much Charlotte might tell the world that Anne had been keen to leave it, the letter indicates otherwise.  Anne describes how she has 'many schemes in my head for future practise - humble and limited indeed - but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose.'  Anne was twenty-nine, full of plans and wanted to live.  Caught by the emotion behind the letter, Ellis determined to find out more about the most neglected of the Brontës.

Ellis' book is not a typical biography.  Like How to be a Heroine, it is more of a bibliomemoir, with Ellis' own life and personal musings intertwining with her analysis of Anne Brontë.  Over the course of the year, she meets a man, ponders whether he is going to be her boyfriend and by the end of the book, he is about to become her husband instead.  She ponders the tragedy that she has already lived eleven more years than Anne got and that Anne died with so much potential unrealised but where other biographers sigh and pontificate, Ellis is refreshingly angry about the waste of talent.  Yet although this is a meditation on Anne as much as it is a memoir, Ellis has nonetheless done her research in detail and considers her sources with care.  She considers what Anne herself would want to be remembered for and the legacy she would have wished to leave behind her.

Each chapter of Take Courage focuses on Anne's relationship with a different figure within the family and what they meant to her, from the mother Maria who Anne never remembered right down to Tabby the housekeeper.  Each are felt to represent a different facet to Anne's character, with Emily being her partner in creativity, Tabby having given Anne an understanding of the working classes and then via Branwell, Anne learnt the peril of bad relationships.  Ellis entitles Aunt Branwell's chapter as 'Elizabeth' because she points out that 'history has not been kind to spinsters' and as a long-term single woman herself, Ellis refuses to pigeonhole another woman in that role.  I respect the theory but it feels weird to call Aunt Branwell anything else.  Elizabeth.  Elizabeth.  Hmm.

The family member who earns the most opprobrium is - unsurprisingly - Charlotte.  Her chapter in Take Courage is subtitled 'How (not) to be a sister'.  In the story of Anne Brontë, Charlotte's conduct has carved herself the villain role.  Anne's novel Agnes Grey depicts a sister relationship where the elder babies the younger and many scholars believe this to have mirrored Anne's own relationship with Charlotte.  Letters between Charlotte and her loyal friend/sycophant Ellen Nussey always tend to take a patronising tone whenever the subject of Anne came up.  As Ellis notes, Charlotte 'tried to protect Anne but she never really trusted her'.  Charlotte was distressed when going through Anne's papers after her death to discover how little she knew her sister.  Yet, this did not stop Charlotte from deciding that she knew best and that Tenant of Wildfell Hall was 'hardly worth preserving'.

It is a strange thing to see the sibling rivalries from nearly two centuries played out in the fields of biography - everyone seems to feel the need to pick a sister and very few Brontë biographers manage to keep themselves free of partisan feeling.  Claire Harman, author of Charlotte Brontë: A Life, wrote a review of Take Courage that clearly felt the sting of Ellis' criticism of Charlotte.  Oddly, one of Harman's critiques was that Ellis did not acknowledge enough of Anne's difficulties, specifically her speech impediment.  Juliet Barker pointed out in The Brontës that the only person who ever stated Anne to have had a speech impediment was Charlotte and indeed the tone of the letter where she does so seems more like a dig at her sister rather than a statement of a disability.  It is difficult bordering on impossible to defend Charlotte for the damage she inflicted on Anne's posthumous reputation.

Indeed, one of the biggest revelations for me in Take Courage was how badly butchered Anne's second novel was after its author's death.  With Charlotte refusing to allow a third edition, Tenant ended up pirated by an unscrupulous publisher who cut it down to one-volume form and also kept in the typos which Anne Brontë had corrected.  Going through the biggest areas of difference, Ellis' anger was palpable and roused my own.  I had had no idea before reading this that Tenant is still routinely published in this mutilated form even now.  I even realised when I looked at my own copy that it too was affected.  Detailed research (and an online order of a copy that claimed to be 'complete and unabridged' but also proved to be a mutilated edition) and I landed on the Oxford University Press edition as the best way to go.  I re-read the whole book in the appropriate format - somehow, it just felt better.

Ellis clearly identifies more strongly with Tenant than Agnes Grey.  Many find Agnes to be lacking in fire but I think that Ellis also struggles to engage with the religious side of Anne Brontë.  Both Agnes and Tenant are peppered with specific scriptural references and while Charlotte's novels do deal with matters of faith and conscience, they do not grapple in the same way that Anne's do.  Anne's piety makes her less fashionable in the modern era but it has always been one of the aspects which impressed me about her.  Anne is not an easy Christian picking and choosing what pleases her, she sets up her characters to struggle and fight and make difficult choices and still ultimately choose the Narrow Way.  Anne was the Brontë of Steel and her faith was a huge part of that.  It is easy to prefer the fire and brimstone of Tenant over Agnes Grey but recollect that Agnes is a woman who battered some birds to death because she knew it was the right thing to do.  Agnes too has a battle cry.

As Ellis considers why Anne has been so long neglected, she ponders whether it is perhaps because she was too radical.  Helen Huntingdon started out as a young woman charmed by a 'sexy, dangerous man' - so far, so Brontë.  However where Jane Eyre keeps running back and Cathy and Heathcliff destroy each other, Helen instead 'sees the light and leaves him.'  Previous to this, Helen actually shut her door against her husband.  She had the temerity to put the needs of their infant son before his.  Heroines in Charlotte's novels always seem to abase themselves before the objects of their affections, even the otherwise glorious Shirley Keeldar will only take a husband if he can 'master her'.  Emily's depiction of love is best categorised as 'other'.  Anne dared to suggest that just maybe, you should pick a partner in life who is actually worthy of your respect.  Revolutionary though it was, 'it wasn't what anyone wanted to hear in 1848'.  Even now though, women watch costume dramas to see the woman in the big dress swept off her feet by the grouchy rich man who suddenly becomes quite nice really.  They are not necessarily looking for a lesson in avoiding waste-of-space scoundrels.

The preface that Anne wrote to the second edition of Tenant though shows that no matter what Charlotte thought, she meant every word she had written and she was keen to get her message out as far as she could.  At heart, Anne was a teacher.  She left the classroom, but not the act of teaching itself.  She had felt sorrow for her pupils, the Robinson girls, as she witnessed their mother's ruthlessness in getting them husbands regardless of the qualities of the men involved.  Both Anne's novels express disapproval of the marriage market.  She clearly believed that upper class girls got a raw deal.  Anne never liked to see those with power abusing those who were vulnerable, whether it be birds in a nest being tortured by a vicious little boy or young girls being sacrificed like lambs to be wives.  Her last letter illustrates that she had much more to say, many more plans to try to make the world a fairer place.  Anne Brontë wrote with purpose and passion, just not the type of passion that we are used to.

Any biography of Anne Brontë will necessarily have to resort to some speculation.  There simply is not enough evidence available to do anything else.  Yet despite Ellis' chatty style, she does engage with her sources critically, querying even some of the more famous verdicts on Anne's writing.  When Ellis does follow her own theories, she is open enough with the reader to acknowledge it, meaning that I had more faith in her as a biographer than in my other recent Anne read, In Search of Anne Brontë.  There's no way of knowing for sure, but Ellis' suggestion that Anne was the one who destroyed the Gondal stories seemed as reasonable as any other explanation I have read.  Take Courage may offer up a fair amount of about Samantha Ellis herself, but it remains a well-written and highly compelling biography which got me thinking about Anne Brontë in a completely different way.

It is easy to know all the bare facts right down to what she called her one of the toy soldiers or about that time she sassed her aunt who had asked her where her feet were (Anne's answer 'On the floor, Aunt') but repetition of these only reduces Anne still further into the cardboard figure she has become within the mythology.  I share Ellis' indignation at the snide critics who label her the least essential Brontë, famous for her sisters rather than for her own work, a 'watercolourist' in literature, the 'least industrious Brontë' - two novels by the age of twenty-nine and a stack of poetry!  Much of this while holding down a very stressful full-time job!  Emily only ever wrote one book!  For its passionate defence of Anne's posthumous reputation alone, Take Courage is well worth reading, but more than that, when it comes to Anne's writing, Ellis has the passion of the newly converted and that is wonderful to read.  Anne's novels are about life, not the fantasies written by her sisters, she wrote about taking the life you have and making it into the best possible one it could be.  Her own span on this earth may have been short, far too short, but her message was clear and deserves to be heard.

I really enjoyed this book. As the teacher in charge of stocking the senior school library, I like to ensure that the books are diverse and the students are exposed to both excellent fiction and excellent modern non-fiction. I think that this is both a fascinating and well-written book that has much to recommend it and will keep the students interests. It is good to stretch their reading interests by providing them with books about subjects they might never have considered before and this definitely does the job well. It is also good to find books that I know the teaching staff might enjoy as well as the students and I definitely think that this applies in both cases. Absolutely recommend wholeheartedly; a fantastic read.

“Take courage.” The last words uttered by Anne Bronte before she died. These words, of course, were being offered to someone else, typically. To Charlotte, one of her two much more famous sisters. But in her typical selfless style, Anne was building another up, while holding herself back from the foreground.

This is a wonderful biography. Through ten chapters, each bearing the name of someone who was truly important to Anne - her mother, sisters, Aunt, brother etc., Samantha Ellis interweaves her own life with Anne’s, telling us both of their stories. It is deeply personal and revealing, yet witty and very clever. For the first time, Anne’s true character comes into the spotlight, standing separate from her sisters rather than among them or, even, behind them. The insight Ellis gives us is extraordinary. She threads Anne’s path and takes us along with her on her journey.

This is a truly emotional biography and I loved it. Ellis is a fantastic writer, a true advocate of the gentle voice and the quiet feminist. Anyone interested in the Brontes or in reading itself should read this book.

Although I purchased a copy of this book for my own little library (I loved the cover and wanted it for keeps!), I did get an ARC from Netgalley and want to thank them and the publisher for sending it to me.

I've always been fascinated by Anne Bronte because she seemed to be the "forgotten" sister to some extent, and most people seem to prefer Charlotte or Emily. Since reading 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' and researching some of the groundbreaking issues Anne explored, I've wanted to know more about her. Samantha Ellis has written a wonderful book detailing all you could want to know about Anne, in an interesting and enjoyable manner. It has a modern sense of humour but is not to be dismissed as superficial. I loved every page and would definitely recommend it.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The style of the author is quite light, which is a good thing given the subject matter. The Bronte’s are a fascinating family and this is a lovely book which really helps to bring light to Anne Bronte and her work. Each chapter examines a different family member or friend of the family, sheds light on their relationship with Anne and reveals more about who she was. I never realised that a lot of what we thought we knew about Anne was distorted by her family, who hugely influenced what was published after her death. This book goes a great deal to providing a more balanced view of Anne, what she thought and how she lived. I can’t wait to re-read her novels, and maybe even try some of her poems too.

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
As someone who has always trumpeted the case for Anne Brontë being the "best" Brontë, Take Courage was always going to be a joy. For those unfamiliar with Anne or yet to be convinced of her merits, this offers a compelling, conversational approach to convincing you. Samantha Ellis approaches Anne’s story through the people in her life and the literary characters she created – each chapter being set around a particular figure. This allows for a fascinating look at all the Brontës.
This is not a heavy, academic text, this is a passionate book about a beloved author. That is not to say it is not impeccably researched, it is, just that the tone is accessible and engaging. There is plenty of general interest about the Brontës in this book so this will be of interest to the general Brontë admirer rather than just Anne’s specific fans, and would work well as an introduction to Anne for those yet to make her acquaintance, as well as a welcome reunion for those already in the know.
Anne has always been looked on as the other Brontë sister with her tragic, suffering, goody-goody image and novels that were not appreciated for their brilliance when she first published them but this is a woman who bravely took on the injustices in society, daring to argue in her novels for the rights of women in employment and in marriage, despite condemnation for daring to bring the unpleasant elements of society to people’s attention. A fascinating book, well worth a read.

All about Ellis

As someone who has always regarded Anne Bronte's Wildfell Hall as one of the most anarchic of nineteenth-century novels, a kind of dark antidote to the sparkling romances of Austen et al., it's good to see Anne being brought out from the shadows of her sisters. This book, though, is more about Ellis than Anne herself. Part self-analysis, part rumination on her own life, part biased depiction of Anne based on some rather skewed readings (especially with regard to Charlotte Bronte), this is a very subjective and rather quirky view of the often-overlooked Bronte. Self-obsessed, solipsistic, this is ultimately more about Ellis than it really is about Anne.

Like an episode of Friends we tend to think of the Brontës in terms of the rebellious, passionate one (Emily), the one who spoke out for the underdog (Charlotte), the one with the life tragically cut short (poor old Branwell) and, well, the other one. Anne seems to be the sibling who is relegated to being ‘the pretty one’…Now there’s nothing wrong with being pretty but it seems rather damning with faint praise if you are a Brontë. Seeing Samantha Ellis’s new book about Anne shortly after seeing Sally Wainwright’s thought-provoking To Walk Invisible over the Christmas period I was eager to read about the most invisible of the three sisters.

This book was interesting because it was as much about Samantha Ellis as it is about Anne Brontë in some parts. Ellis, at the start of the book, is a single(ish) fan of Wuthering Heights who thinks Anne is a bit, well, boring. After seeing Anne’s last letter, full of a desire to do more in the future despite her failing health, she realises that maybe the view we have of her (largely from Mrs Gaskell’s rather fawning biography of Charlotte) could be flawed. Each chapter looks at Anne through her relationship with other members of the Brontë household, through her own writing and through Ellis’s growing respect for her as both a writer and a woman. She is shown to be courageous, loyal and a gifted writer – in many ways showing the qualities her sisters are famed for. Agnes Grey showed the reality of the life of a lowly governess before Jane Eyre (although the vagaries of publishing meant that it looked like Charlotte’s novel was written first) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was as groundbreaking as Wuthering Heights in its portrayal of a woman who leaves an abusive husband. And this at a time when women were generally considered the property of man…

As well as being a fascinating insight into the life of an underestimated author this book is also an incitement to reinvestigate Anne’s work. It seems the very least that posterity owes her…

A really enjoyable read. Take Courage is Samantha Ellis's personal account of discovering the truth behind the short, yet passionate life, of Anne Brontë. Samantha Ellis puts herself into the book in the best way, to ensure that we understand Anne. It may only be one perspective/opinion of Anne, but with so little left of her life, besides her books, Samantha thickens her biography with detail and insight of the world that Anne would have known. A well fleshed out book which was incredibly readable. I would happily read again.

To be published in numerous local magazines in April: Anne is often seen as the ‘other Brontë’. Most of us would struggle to remember the names of either of her books. In part this is because of the way she’s usually portrayed – quiet, reserved and, well, less interesting than her siblings. Ellis goes to great lengths to show that this was far from the case. Anne’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was, in many ways, more subversive and ahead of its time than those of her sisters. As Ellis talks us through her research, a very different Anne Brontë starts to emerge. Take Courage is far from a dry clinical biography, Ellis is clearly indignant at Anne’s treatment and the book is a real pleasure to read.

What a great read, I already loved the Bronte's work (and that is pretty essential to fully enjoy this book) but had no real knowledge of their personal lives and experiences. It is an unusual biography in that Ellis weaves so much of her personal life into the book, and it's a remarkable piece of research and passion. The book is a specific look at the life and work of Anne Bronte - often the 'missing' sister, yet a very great woman and writer. The chapters are separated into the a review of each of the important people in Anne's short life, and this was my only boggle with the book, it's a bit 'back and forth' and I did on occasion get a bit lost as the chronology is hard to follow if you're a bit tired... but that is such a minor thing when thinking of the book as a whole. What I enjoyed most was learning about Anne's interests and her desire to promote issues of importance to women. I did finish the book with less love for Jane Eyre, which I would have said was one of my favourite books ever, until Ellis has thrown new light (for me) onto the relationship between the characters. It is a really well written, interesting and inspiring read.

For years I have felt that Anne Bronte was totally neglected and ignored and this has made me very cross. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a wonderful work, well ahead of its time in its story line, that of a wife who leaves an abusive marriage. Did not go down well with the majority when it was published. 'Unwomanly' just one word used to describe it and there were many others. In this marvellous book Samanthat Ellis takes us through Anne's Life and that of her family in a personal way which is very beguiling and also witty and amusing, not words usually used when describing the Brontes.

The thing I loved about Anne is her steadfastness. She makes up her mind to do something and she does. Charlotte has always described her as 'quiet Anne' 'gentle Anne' but I think she was anything but as we see when against the wishes of the entire family she decided to take a post as a governess. Her experiences form the basis of Agnes Grey, a small book in length but searing in its portrayal of the family she went to live with and the dreadful behaviour of her charges. She stuck it out for some time despite her father and sisters pleading with her to come home. Later she took up another post with the Robinson family at Thorpe Green where she stayed for several years, to be joined later by Branwell who was engaged as tutor to the sons of the family and then had an affair with his employer's wife resulting in scandal and disgrace.

Anne was stoic. She suffered as much as Charlotte and Emily when away from Haworth and working in uncongenial surroundings and with people she disliked, but unlike her two sisters she kept quiet and got on with it. I find her attitude much more acceptable than the histrionics of Emily and Charlotte who, quite frankly, must have been awful teachers and governesses respectively as they both seemed to loathe children.

Anne's death never fails to make me cry and, once again, I was in tears at the end of Samantha Ellis's book. Last year I read a wonderful biography of Anne by Nick Holland and now we have this excellent addition. Like buses you wait for years and then two come along at once. Both fascinating and both now firmly on my bookshelf.

I loved this book. Loved it.

To be reviewed on Goodreads and my blog when I return from overseas in a few days.

A sisterly fight for the youngest, overlooked Brontë

I confess, with some shame, that the youngest Brontë, Anne, is the one I have never explored. Clearly, I surrendered to the fake news floating around for nearly 200 years which dismissed Anne as being lesser than her more respected siblings, Emily and Charlotte.

Anne has been championed in more modern times for her more realistic, less romantic, heroines, as the sister who more clearly reflected the way society was weighted against women, and, moreover who explored a journey towards independence for her heroines, a self-actualisation free from the lures of ‘the Byronic romantic hero’ which renders Emily’s and Charlotte’s books so very alluring to impressionable minds.

Anne might just be the writer for the woman wanting to make a journey out of myth. And Ellis is a perfectly placed writer to explore this territory.

I adored Ellis’ first book, How to be a Heroine, which engagingly, intelligently, passionately, thoughtfully and entertainingly explored the various ‘heroines’ of literature whom female readers might internalise as aspirational role models. This was, and is, a book a strongly recommend to all of my literary minded sisters, as a feisty book which provokes much enjoyable debate. And THIS book will be another, and is certainly heading me over to explore Anne’s two novels.

Ellis writes exactly the kind of literary non-fiction which I most enjoy. Forget dry, cerebral, academic theory, which pins its subject matter like a chloroformed butterfly, so that it will never fly again. Without losing any ability to analyse, or being any less intelligent in analysis, what Samantha Ellis brings is dynamism, a whole-hearted, gut-felt, lively intellect engagement with her material. Literature MATTERS to her, it is a living thing, and she observes the flying butterfly of a book, a life, a society on the wing, and observes herself observing it, rather than pretending a book, a life, a society are something outside our observation. The observer is always also having subjective responses.

Ellis takes (of course she does!) an interesting approach to her analysis of Anne, her life and her books. Rather than a linear approach, she looks at the seminal influences on Anne, with a chapter devoted to each influencing person. And also chapters devoted to the central characters of her two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – there must, surely, always be a kind of symbiotic relationship between a writer and their creations. The writer (well, the depth writer, anyway) will create characters from their own ‘stuff’, but what is also happening is that written character is also potential, offering an ability for writer (and reader) to have something fed back to them, by the imaginative invention.

And I was pleased to discover (so Ellis, so Anne!) that the positive influence of less obvious individuals were allowed to take their places in Anne’s formative sun – not only her missing mother, Maria, who died in Anne’s infancy, but Aunt Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s older sister, who moved from her beloved Cornwall to be the motherly presence in the Haworth household. Tabby, who served the family all her life, also provided stability and love. The often harshly vilified father, Patrick, is also shown to be far more positively formative, with his commitment to education, and a strong sense of class inequality, and its unjustiice.

It must be said that the person Ellis is most censorious of is the best known, most successful sister – Charlotte, and her proper champions, Mrs Gaskell and Ellen Nussey. It was Charlotte who prevented, initially, the re-publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall after Anne’s death. In writing a realistic novel about alcoholism and about violence within marriage, Anne had written too modern, too truthful a book. And one, moreover, ‘unfeminine’ The book was considered by some, coarse, because it showed truth, and held a mirror up to society. Charlotte rather presented the sanitised image of the youngest sister, shy and sweet, and what the youngest actually wrote, conflicted with the docile image :

"Wildfell Hall it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer."

At this time of course Charlotte is a literary sensation. There is no doubt she loved her sister, but it seems she may have found it easier to love the idea of a weak, ineffectual angel (possibly an unhealed loss of her eldest sister, Maria, who it seems WAS that child), but found a more tough-minded, truth, rather than romantic illusion, facing sister, too tough a prospect. A more modern, psychologically driven analysis also has to wonder about any role played by sibling rivalry. Despite being seen by some as ‘coarse’, BECAUSE it did not romanticise, Wildfell Hall did sell well, on first publication.

Samantha Ellis, in offering us a wonderfully complex, interesting person, challenging-of-pre-conceptions writer, in her Anne Brontë biography, does the reader a service by clearly indicating where she is ‘imagining’ from her own perspective how Anne might have felt, or thought this and that, with also backing up some of her assumptions by textual evidence from the books, from social history documents of the times, as well as Bronte-and-friends letters and other documents

Woven into the book, in a way I find wonderful, is a kind of life-story, journey, of Ellis as artist and woman. This is a harking back to her first book ‘How to Be A Heroine’ as she uses Anne’s writing, Anne’s complex, struggling heroines, Agnes and Helen, to help her reflect on her own journey. Reminding me (who needs no such reminder) of the power of literature to shape lives. We learn and are inspired by a multiplicity of stories – our own, those of others we know personally, also figures in our own times on world stages, figures from other times – but, also, the inspiration of imagination itself, and that most ancient, and most potent of teachers – story.

I received this as a digital copy for review purposes from the publisher via NetGalley

This is the most readable lit crit I have ever encountered. Samantha Ellis has totally converted me into an Anne Fan and I'm now to read her (Anne's) books. I read this quickly like a novel, enjoying Ellis' interjections of her private life, her clear modern eyes assessing the sometimes sparse information. In Ellis' hands we see Anne develop into a feisty, professional, passionate, skilled novelist. This is a book with heart that looks at all the main influences on Anne chapter by chapter and really mourns her early death from TB. Charlotte who normally takes centre stage, on the whole, doesn't come out of it too well. Emily is a bit weird and dies too young as well. Anne, the third wheel, comes into her own. Of great interest to anyone who has ever read a Bronte novel or visited Haworth - or just likes reading.

Like many readers, my first introduction to the writing of the Bronte’s was “Jane Eyre,” followed by “Wuthering Heights.” Author Samantha Ellis, whose previous work, “How to be a Heroine,” is one book I fully intend to read, and soon, admits that she was much the same – more than slightly obsessed by Heathcliff and Cathy. Ellis has a chatty, personal style, which makes the subjects she is writing about seem incredibly familiar and understandable. She likens the Bronte sisters to the Beatles, for example – casting Emily as Lennon, the mercurial genius, Charlotte as the ambitious, talented McCartney and Anne as Harrison, the Beatle whose talent was so often overlooked; both by the public and by his band mates.

Like so many readers, I admit that I came to Anne’s novels after those of Charlotte and Emily’s and I loved them. Like Ellis, I felt outraged when, as she went about exploring the life of Anne, she found that many people did not know her work, or even who she was. She was cast as ‘the Other Sister.’ Less talented, less famous, younger, less important, and so I am delighted that this book puts her life firmly at the centre of her own, too short, story.

In this book, Samantha Ellis gives each chapter a theme and then uses it to explore Anne’s life. So, a chapter may look at her relationship with Charlotte, or Emily, Branwell, her aunt Elizabeth, Tabby, who helped keep house, her father, Patrick, and, obviously, her novels, “Agnes Grey,” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Of course, this is a biography and so the story of Anne is told; the early loss of her mother, the imaginative, make believe world of Gondal that she shared with Emily, her love of nature and her attempt to use her writing to make important points about the lives of women.

In “Agnes Grey,” Anne used her powers of observation to portray the very real life that governesses faced, after being one herself. Overlooked and shy, she wrote (writing ‘crossways’ across the paper to save money) of being made to feel uncomfortable on walks, where she was talked ‘over’ or ignored. Where she was expected to be on call all the time and had no leisure of her own, while Branwell was allowed to lodge outside and had the ability to walk and write. Again and again, we see both Anne, and her sisters, finding their writing taking second place to their obligations – whether it is housework or earning a living, they had to try to find time for their own passions. Money was spent on Branwell’s attempts to make a career as an artist – his sisters published in secret and under pseudonyms.

Sadly, Anne never lived to see how her work has survived. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” is a wonderful read and also has an extremely important message. Ellis tells of how Anne heard her own father tell a visitor that, against all the expectations of the day, she should leave her husband and this spurred her on to write a novel where her heroine, Helen, becomes her own woman and finds the courage to leave her unhappy marriage. In this work, the author puts both Anne’s life, and her work, in context. This is a moving read – it left me feeling angry and yet uplifted. Angry that women are still suffering outrages (we live in an era with a new President who laughs off a sexual assault as ‘locker room banter,’ where women are abused, vilified and insulted based on their looks, where babies are killed because they are female) and yet uplifted, because Anne, and her sisters, fought against the odds to create marvellous works of literature. Their poverty, their lack of opportunity, their limited opportunities, did not stop their imagination from soaring and their work from surviving.

If you love reading; if reading is important to you, then I urge you to read this book. It is one of the best biographies that I have read and I am sad I have finished it. I rarely feel such sorrow when I complete a book – but this will stay with me and I feel enriched by the experience of reading it. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

L'ho scritto e riscritto: Jane Eyre è il mio romanzo preferito, Jane Austen la mia scrittrice preferita.

Nonostante questi pilastri del mio cuore di lettrice, quando ho incrociato per caso un romanzo di Anne Bronte ("l'altra Bronte", la minore, la misconosciuta, la timida e mite) che non conoscevo (e già questo è indicativo - non conoscevo The tenant of Wildfell Hall!) e l'ho preso in mano non ho potuto che riconoscerne la superiorità: è un romanzo coraggioso e innovativo, sia dal punto di vista stilistico che dei temi trattati. Un romanzo che infrange in un colpo solo l'immagine che viene diffusa di Anne come la mite, paziente e pia figlia di un curato di campagna, tutta rassegnazione e preghiere, e alcuni dei grandi tabù dell'Inghilterra vittoriana.

Non dico niente perché è stato da poco ripubblicato anche in Italia, dopo anni in cui risultava introvabile (e anche questo è indicativo), e merita di essere letto e scoperto la cieca, come è capitato a me, per veder smontare tutti i pregiudizi sulla sua autrice pagina dopo pagina.

Ma chi era "l'altra Bronte"? Come nasce il mito della sua rassegnata mitezza? Da dove si originano idee così rivoluzionarie come quelle che esprime nei suoi libri?

Samantha Ellis esplora quello che si sa della vita di Anne attraverso le persone, reali (i familiari e la domestica Tabby) e immaginarie (Agnes ed Helen, le protagoniste dei suoi romanzi) che l'hanno ispirata e formata, attraverso gioie e dolori, esempio e contrasto, e attraverso la testimonianza minuziosa dei (troppo pochi) scritti che ci sono rimasti.

Ne viene fuori una personalità vivida e complessa, piena di luce, alla ricerca del vero Bene, priva del timore delle convenzioni che ci si aspetterebbe: una femminista ante litteram dal pensiero profondo e innovativo. E una moltitudine di figure - il padre, le sorelle, la zia, Tabby, il fratello, le allieve, i datori di lavoro... - che saltano fuori dalla pagina, intessuti nell'arazzo della vita e del pensiero di Anne.

Perché è vero che la storia di ognuna delle Bronte è, prima di tutto, una storia di famiglia.

Una biografia bellissima, piacevole come un romanzo, che ridà finalmente respiro a una grande scrittrice e a una donna coraggiosa.