On the occasion of Anne Brontë’s bicentenary I’m publishing, together with Casa Editrice Ripostes, the first monograph ever written about this author. Anne was the youngest of the three British writers known for their passionate and captivating novels, and this work is at the moment also the only one we can actually translate into Italian. As a matter of fact, for all the other biographies, we still have to wait for seventy years to pass from the first publication or from the author’s death.
This biography includes a very well-structured discussion about Anne’s works; it was written in 1929 by Will T. Hale (1880-1967) who was a professor of English Literature at Indiana University.
It is very difficult to find this book, even in its original version- as a matter of fact you can only find it in very rare libraries. Luckily they have it at the library of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
Will Hale was the first one who, eighty years after she died, wanted to write about “kind and gentle Anne”. He saw her as an individual, not as a part of that same family which had been clouding her value for more than fifty years. Hale, even if not immediately, obtained a certain effect and Anne Brontë’s works were finally reevaluated. For decades, in fact, Anne’s works had been considered mediocre and with no nerve. He succeeded in giving back her personality, and some originality, to this author- as she is as worthy as her sisters, who are known worldwide.
Anne Brontë, la vita e le opere
di Will T. Hale (a cura e traduzione di Maddalena De Leo), Ripostes 2020
Looking for more biographies about the Brontës? Read E sognai di Cime Tempestose, an excerpt.
