Who were Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell? They were the pseudonyms used by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.
The Brontë sisters are known for some of the most famous novels in the English language. Charlotte Brontë wrote four novels, the most famous of which is Jane Eyre. Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights. Anne Brontë wrote two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The three sisters were unable to write more because they all died at very young ages. Anne was 29, Emily 30, and Charlotte 38. Anne and Emily both died of tuberculosis, while Charlotte is now often thought to have died from complications connected to pregnancy. Who knows how many novels they would have been able to write if they had lived longer?
The three sisters were born in the early 19th century, and they were prolific writers, sharing their stories with each other from a young age. Their father, Patrick Brontë, was an Anglican clergyman who was well educated and unusually supportive of his daughters’ learning. He was also an Irish immigrant who had changed his name from Brunty or Prunty to Brontë, although nobody knows for certain exactly why he did it. The three famous Brontë sisters were actually three of six children, five girls and one boy. Their two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died young at the ages of 11 and 10. Tuberculosis was one of the great killers of the age. Patrick Brontë was not a wealthy man, but his job made him lower middle class and gave the family a house to live in. Unusually for the time, he believed in educating his daughters and sent them away to school. It was not common to educate girls in the same serious way as boys, and when girls were educated, the subjects were often limited to music, singing, French, drawing, and sewing. These were subjects they were expected to use later in life. Pretty much the only respectable jobs open to women at the time were teaching in schools, being a governess to children in a wealthy family, or doing domestic work of some kind.
The three Brontë sisters did end up teaching or working as governesses, and they did not like it. They wanted to write. They spent most of their spare time writing and sharing their stories with each other. However, when it came to publishing their work, they had another problem. Society at the time did not think women should be authors. It was thought that women were not suited to intellectual or academic pursuits. There were almost no women in academia and very few female authors who were taken seriously. Two famous examples were Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, who were not originally published under their own names. Jane Austen’s books appeared anonymously or as “By a Lady,” and the first edition of Frankenstein was published anonymously as well. Many readers assumed Percy Shelley had written it.
The Brontë sisters realized that if they were going to try to get their work published, they would have to think of different names. They wanted to keep their initials, so they ended up with Currer for Charlotte, Ellis for Emily, and Acton for Anne. Nobody knows for certain where Bell came from , but their brother’s name was Branwell, so it could have been the first and last three letters of his name. They took these names and set out to publish their work, first in a joint collection of poems and then in novels. The names sounded masculine enough to protect them, but they were still close to their real identities.
Their first book, a collection of poems, was not successful at all. In fact, it sold only a couple of copies. The novels did much better, especially Jane Eyre, which became a major success very quickly, although Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey had a more mixed early reception. At one point, there was confusion over whether Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were really different people. To prove that they were, Anne and Charlotte traveled to London and appeared in person before the publisher. This meant their father and their publisher were the only people who knew their true identities.
Their works were not widely published under their own names until 1850, after Anne and Emily had both died. Charlotte wrote a preface for a new edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey in which she revealed who the three sisters were. At first, many readers were surprised that such raw and passionate novels had been written by women. After a while, though, people got used to it and Charlotte’s fame grew. Unfortunately, she died in 1855. Their father, Patrick, outlived his wife and all six of his children by six years. Rather sad. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.andrews.edu/life/student-movement/issues/2024-03-08/a-e__the-bronteu-sisters.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Bront%C3%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bront%C3%AB
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