Author Interview

Debut author Adelle Hay tells why the work of lesser-known Brontë sister, Anne, remains so relevant

What began for Adelle as a childhood love of the famous Brontë sisters has culminated in a book about Anne, the youngest and – to her mind – the most fearless and pioneering talent of the writing family.

Anne Brontë Reimagined was published on January 16 which was also the eve of the bicentenary of Anne’s birth.

Adelle, 32, explores why Anne has been endlessly sidelined compared to her sisters Emily and Charlotte, casting a new light on her work.

She says it isn’t a biography, but a focus on the themes that are important in Anne’s writing: “It’s how these are still relevant today. I also wanted to put her books back into context because there’s a lot that we lose just because it’s 170 years since it was published.

“For example, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall we have Helen Graham leaving her husband. To a modern reader, that’s commonplace – but at the time Anne was writing it was against the law.”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published in 1848 under the name Acton Bell. Following Mrs Graham and her son, who flee from domestic abuse, the novel broaches subjects such as alcohol abuse, gender equality, education for girls and married women’s rights.

Anne’s debut novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847. She died in 1849 from tuberculosis aged just 29.

Adelle first became of aware of the Brontës at the age of 12 when she visited their former residence Haworth in West Yorkshire – now the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

She explains: “At that age I had a lot of notebooks and I used to make up alphabets so nobody could read what I was writing. I saw the tiny writing the sisters had done so that their father couldn’t read it without a magnifying glass and the maps they had drawn of imaginary places. I remember enjoying that I wasn’t alone.”

A friend of her mother gave her a copy of Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights and it soon became an annual event to visit Haworth for her birthday.

“I had always been told that Anne’s books were boring and not as good as Charlotte and Emily’s and I was never motivated to read them. But when I did, I wondered where all the negativity had come from because I felt like they were a lot more radical than the others.”

During her research into Anne she was struck by how much Charlotte – who outlived her four sisters and brother, dying in 1855 aged 38 – was able to influence her youngest sister’s legacy. After Anne’s death, Jane Eyre author Charlotte edited The Tenant of Wildfell Hall heavily before it was reprinted in 1854. This was largely due to the stark depictions of the debauched behaviour of the female protagonist’s husband.

Adelle, who lives in Derby, admits her fascination with Anne “was a hobby that turned into a book.” She originally studied physics and also worked as a bookbinder.

● Anne Brontë Reimagined: A view from the twenty-first century is published by Saraband, £9.99.