[3][4] He was the oldest of ten children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor McCrory, poor Irish peasant farmers.

Maria was intelligent and well read,[11] and her strong Methodist faith attracted Patrick Brontë, whose own leanings were similar.

[21] Maria and Elizabeth Brontë died of tuberculosis on 6 May and 15 June 1825 respectively, and Charlotte and Emily were brought home.

[26] Their reading fed their imaginations, and their creativity soared after their father gave Branwell a set of toy soldiers in June 1826.

This led to the creation of an imaginary world: the African kingdom of "Angria", which was illustrated with maps and watercolour renderings.

The children devised plots about the inhabitants of Angria and its capital city, "Glass Town", later called Verreopolis or Verdopolis.

The characters and lands created by the children were given newspapers and magazines and chronicles written in tiny books with writing so small that it was difficult to read without a magnifying glass.

[29] Around 1831, when Anne was eleven, she and Emily broke away from Charlotte and Branwell to create and develop their own fantasy world, "Gondal".

[30] Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey visited Haworth in 1833 and reported that Emily and Anne were "like twins" and "inseparable companions".

[35] A Moravian minister was called to see her several times during her illness, suggesting her distress was caused, in part, by conflict with the local Anglican clergy.

Anne's time at Blake Hall was so traumatic that she reproduced it in almost perfect[clarification needed] detail in her novel Agnes Grey.

Anne returned to Haworth and met William Weightman, her father's new curate who had started work in the parish in August 1839.

Anne's acquaintance with him parallels her writing a number of poems, which may suggest she fell in love with him[41][42][clarification needed] although there is disagreement over this possibility.

[57] It was at the Long Plantation at Thorp Green in 1842 that Anne wrote her three-verse poem Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day, which was published in 1846 under the name Acton Bell.

Anne's vaunted calm appears to have been the result of hard-fought battles, balancing deeply felt emotions with careful thought, a sense of responsibility and resolute determination.

[73] "Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways," scribbled Anne Brontë in pencil at the back of her Prayer Book.

She presented a forceful rebuttal to critics (among them Charlotte) who considered her portrayal of Huntingdon overly graphic and disturbing.

Many years after Anne's death, he wrote in The Cornhill Magazine his impressions of her: a gentle, quiet, rather subdued person, by no means pretty, yet of a pleasing appearance.

Her manner was curiously expressive of a wish for protection and encouragement, a kind of constant appeal which invited sympathy.

[81] The family suffered from coughs and colds during the winter of 1848, and Emily became very ill. She worsened over two months and rejected medical aid until the morning of 19 December.

[84][clarification needed] However, in her letter to Ellen Nussey she expressed her frustrated ambitions: I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect ...

But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa's and Charlotte's sakes but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it.

[86] She also wrote her last poem, A dreadful darkness closes in, in which she deals with being terminally ill.[87] Her health fluctuated for months, but she grew thinner and weaker.

[89] Charlotte was initially against the journey, fearing that it would be too stressful, but changed her mind after the doctor's approval and Anne's assurance that it was her last hope.

[91][clarification needed] Anne was buried in St Mary's churchyard, beneath the castle walls and overlooking the bay.

It was left undisturbed while the new plaque was laid horizontally, interpreting the fading words of the original and correcting its error.

[92] In April 2013 the Brontë Society held a dedication and blessing service at the gravesite to mark the installation of the new plaque.

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.

Biographies by Winifred Gérin (1959), Elizabeth Langland (1989) and Edward Chitham (1991), as well as Juliet Barker's group biography, The Brontës (1994; revised edition 2000), and work by critics such as Inga-Stina Ewbank, Marianne Thormählen, Laura C Berry, Jan B Gordon, Mary Summers, and Juliet McMaster has led to acceptance of Anne Brontë as a major literary figure.

[84][98] Sally McDonald of the Brontë Society said in 2013 that in some ways Anne "is now viewed as the most radical of the sisters, writing about tough subjects such as women's need to maintain independence and how alcoholism can tear a family apart.