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In May 1846 three sisters from a parsonage in Haworth paid £31 10s to publish a book of poems under the names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. It sold two copies in its first year. Acton Bell was Anne Brontë, the youngest of the family, who had spent most of the previous six years as a governess in other people’s houses. Within two years she had published two novels: Agnes Grey, about a governess, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, about a woman who leaves her alcoholic husband at a time when the law gave a wife no right to her own property or children. She died of tuberculosis in Scarborough in May 1849, aged 29. This guide covers her three key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 key books · 1846–1848 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Anne Brontë published three books, all under the pseudonym Acton Bell: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), shared with her sisters, and two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Start with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, her most famous book; read on for what each one is about and the order that makes most sense.
Where to Start with Anne Brontë
If you want her defining book
→ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) — a wife who leaves her husband, written in 1848.
If you want a short, plain-spoken first novel
→ Agnes Grey (1847) — the governess novel drawn from her own working life.
If you want her poetry
→ Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846) — her 21 poems in the sisters’ shared first book.
3 Anne Brontë Books, in Order
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
The sisters’ first book, published in May 1846 by Aylott and Jones at their own expense: 21 poems by Anne, 21 by Emily and 19 by Charlotte. The £31 10s it cost was about three-quarters of Anne’s yearly salary at Thorp Green. Only two copies sold in the first year; Smith, Elder bought the remaining stock and reissued it in new covers in November 1848, still with little success.
Agnes Grey
A clergyman’s daughter becomes a governess after her father loses his money. Her first employers, the Bloomfields, are wealthy and cruel, and their son Tom tortures animals; after her dismissal she joins the Murrays, where she teaches the flirtatious Rosalie, who marries for money, and meets the curate Edward Weston. Published by Thomas Cautley Newby in December 1847 as the third volume of a set whose first two were Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Charlotte said it drew largely on Anne’s own years as a governess, and George Moore later called it “the most perfect prose narrative in English letters”.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
A young widow, “Mrs Graham”, moves into a half-ruined house with her small son and becomes the subject of village gossip. The farmer Gilbert Markham, who tells the story in letters to his friend Jack Halford, falls for her; her diary then reveals that she is Helen Huntingdon and has fled her husband Arthur, a drinker and gambler, taking their child, which the law of the time did not allow. Published by Newby on 24 June 1848, it was an immediate success; some reviewers found it coarse, and Anne defended it in a preface to the second edition that August. The BBC adapted it for television in 1968 and 1996.
In What Order to Read Anne Brontë
With only three books, publication order is easy, and it shows a writer moving fast: from short devotional and Gondal poems, to a quiet first-person novel of 1847, to a long, multi-voiced novel about marriage, drink and the law a year later.
Most readers start with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, because it is her most ambitious book. Agnes Grey is much shorter and can be read before or after it; nothing carries over between the two. Her poems are best read in a modern edition that collects all of them, not only the 21 from 1846.
A reading path
1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
2. Agnes Grey (1847)
3. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
4. The Poems of Anne Brontë, ed. Edward Chitham (1979)
Posthumous Editions of Anne Brontë
Beyond the 3 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Editions published after her death
3
3 books · 1850–1979
- 1850Wuthering Heights and Agnes Greynew edition prepared by Charlotte, with a selection of Emily’s and Anne’s poems and Charlotte’s “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell”
- 1920The Complete Poems of Anne Brontëedited by Clement Shorter, with a bibliographical introduction by C. W. Hatfield; Hodder and Stoughton
- 1979The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentaryedited by Edward Chitham; Macmillan
The years · 1820–1849
Quick facts about Anne Brontë
- Known for
- Anne Brontë is known as the youngest of the Brontë sisters and for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, an 1848 novel about a woman who leaves an abusive, alcoholic husband.
- 1820
- Born in Thornton, near Bradford
- 1839
- First post as a governess, at Blake Hall
- 1849
- Dies in Scarborough, aged 29
- Born
- 17 January 1820, Thornton, near Bradford; the youngest of six children of the Revd Patrick Brontë
- Pen name
- Acton Bell
- Education
- Roe Head school, 1835–1837
- Worked
- Governess to the Ingham family at Blake Hall (1839) and the Robinson family at Thorp Green Hall (1840–1845)
- Sisters
- Charlotte (1816–1855) and Emily (1818–1848); brother Branwell (1817–1848)
- Died
- 28 May 1849, Scarborough, most likely of tuberculosis; buried in St Mary’s churchyard there
The red mark is 1848: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published on 24 June that year.
How Anne Brontë Writes: Telling the Truth
Anne Brontë wrote from what she had seen. Agnes Grey follows her own work as a governess closely: the Bloomfields echo the Inghams of Blake Hall, who dismissed her after nine months, and the Murrays the Robinsons of Thorp Green, where she stayed five years. Even the scene in which Agnes kills young birds to save them from a cruel boy was based on a real incident.
Her prose is plain and direct, closer to Jane Austen’s than to the storms of Wuthering Heights; George Moore said Agnes Grey had “all the qualities of Jane Austen and other qualities.” In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall she builds a more complex structure: Gilbert Markham’s letters frame Helen’s diary, so the reader first sees Helen through village gossip and only later in her own words.
She was explicit about her purpose. In the preface to the second edition of Tenant she wrote that she “wished to tell the truth”, that “when we have to do with vice and vicious characters” it is better “to depict them as they really are”, and that “All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read”. Her poems, many of them religious, show the same seriousness about conscience and doubt.
Frequently asked questions about Anne Brontë’s books
How many books has Anne Brontë written?
Three were published in her lifetime: two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), and the poetry collection Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), which she shared with Charlotte and Emily and which contains 21 of her poems. Her complete poems were collected after her death, first in 1920.
What are Anne Brontë’s books in order?
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).
Where should I start with Anne Brontë?
With The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, her most famous and most ambitious book. If you would rather start with something shorter, read Agnes Grey.
What is Anne Brontë’s most famous book?
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), the story of Helen Huntingdon, who leaves her alcoholic husband and lives under a false name with their son. It was an immediate success on publication.
What name did Anne Brontë publish under?
Acton Bell. Charlotte was Currer Bell and Emily was Ellis Bell. In July 1848 Anne and Charlotte travelled to London to show their publisher George Smith that the “Bells” were not one person; Emily refused to go.
Why was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall controversial?
Some 1848 reviewers found its picture of a drunken, violent husband coarse; The Spectator called the subject “offensive”. Anne answered them in a preface to the second edition that August. After her death Charlotte, who had also thought the portrayal too graphic, prevented a reprint in England, and in 1850 called the choice of subject “a mistake”. The novel was out of print in England until 1854, and later English editions followed a heavily edited text.
Is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a feminist novel?
It is often read as one. Helen leaves her husband and takes their son at a time when, until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, a wife in England could not own property or claim custody of her children. The novelist May Sinclair called it “the first presentment of that Feminist novel which we all know”.
Has Anne Brontë’s work been adapted?
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was adapted by BBC television in 1968, with Janet Munro, and in 1996, with Tara Fitzgerald as Helen, Toby Stephens as Gilbert and Rupert Graves as Arthur Huntingdon. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a ten-part version in 2011. Anne herself is played by Charlie Murphy in Sally Wainwright’s BBC drama To Walk Invisible (2016).
Is Agnes Grey based on Anne Brontë’s life?
Largely, according to Charlotte. Anne was a governess to the Ingham family at Blake Hall in 1839 and to the Robinsons at Thorp Green from 1840 to 1845, and the Bloomfields and Murrays of the novel echo them. The love story and the happy ending are invented.
How did Anne Brontë die?
Most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis, diagnosed as advanced consumption in January 1849. She died in Scarborough on 28 May 1849, aged 29, and is buried in St Mary’s churchyard there.
Did Anne Brontë write under a pen name?
Yes. Anne published as Acton Bell, alongside her sisters Charlotte (Currer Bell) and Emily (Ellis Bell), and Agnes Grey appeared under that name in 1847. The three sisters open my list of authors who wrote under pseudonyms.
Footnotes
- Anne Brontë — Wikipedia
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — Wikipedia
- Agnes Grey — Wikipedia
- Author’s Preface to the Second Edition — Standard Ebooks
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — Encyclopedia.com
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996 TV series) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.”
— Anne Brontë, preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
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