Charlotte Brontë, 1816 – 1855, was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels have become classics of English literature. She first published her works — including her best known novel, Jane Eyre — under the pen name Currer Bell. Emily Jane Brontë, 1818 — 1848, was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell. Anne Brontë, 1820 – 1849, was an English novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.
The daughter of Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England, Anne Brontë lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. She also attended a boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837. At 19 she left Haworth and worked as a governess between 1839 and 1845. After leaving her teaching position, she fulfilled her literary ambitions. She published a volume of poetry with her sisters — Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels, appeared in 1848. Like her poems, both her novels were first published under the masculine penname of Acton Bell. Anne’s life was cut short when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 29.
Partly because the re-publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was prevented by Charlotte Brontë after Anne’s death, she is not as well known as her sisters Charlotte, author of four novels including Jane Eyre, and Emily, author of Wuthering Heights. However, her novels, like those of her sisters, have become classics of English literature.