In December Anne leaves her position with the Inghams and returns to Haworth. Charlotte works as a governess in Lothersdale and later in Rawdon. In Britain 18,000 people die of pneumonia, 25,000 of typhus, and 60,000 of tuberculosis.

1840 In May, Anne moves to Thorp Green, near York, to work as a governess for the family of Reverend Edmund Robinson. She visits York Minster and, in the summer, travels with the Robinsons on holiday to Scarborough, a seaside resort. Branwell works as a clerk on the new Leeds-Manchester railway. Thomas Hardy is born.
1842 Charlotte and Emily travel to Brussels to study. Once again, Anne accompanies the Robinsons on their yearly holiday at Scarborough, spending six weeks at their resort accommodations. In September, William Weightman (a possible love interest of Anne’s) dies of cholera and is buried at Haworth. Aunt Elizabeth Branwell dies in October at age sixty-six, leaving an inheritance to each of her nieces; she too is buried at Haworth. Upon her death, Charlotte and Emily return from Brussels.
1843 Charlotte resumes her studies in Brussels. Anne secures
Branwell a position as tutor at Thorp Green. They return there together following the Christmas holiday. Anne writes the poems “A Word to the Calvinists,” “A Hymn,” and “The Consolation.”
1844 Anne writes the poem “Yes, Thou Art Gone.” Charlotte returns home and formally advertises for a new school to be run by the Brontë sisters at Haworth; lack of enrollment scuttles the effort.
1845 Anne begins writing Passages in the Life of an Individual and composes the poem “Night.” In June she resigns from her position with the Robinsons. Branwell is dismissed from Thorp Green. Anne and Emily travel to York. Charlotte discovers poems written by Emily; despite Emily’s protestations, the discovery prompts an effort to publish the poetry of the three sisters.
1846 Under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the Brontë sisters’ poems are submitted for publication by Aylott and Jones at the Brontës’ expense. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell is published, but only two copies are sold. Anne completes Agnes Grey, her first novel. Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense is published.
1847 Charlotte’s novel The Professor is rejected for publication. Her second novel, Jane Eyre, is published in October by Smith, Elder and Co. under her pseudonym, Currer Bell, to immediate success. Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey are published in December by Thomas Cautley Newby under their respective pseudonyms, Ellis and Acton Bell. Anne begins work on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the poem “Self-Communion.”
1848 Anne finishes “Self-Communion.” The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is published by Newby, under the name Acton Bell. Its immense popularity triggers speculation about the novel’s mysterious authorship, prompting Charlotte and Anne to travel to London to disclose to the former’s publisher their true identities. A second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, with an added preface, is published. Following years of alcohol abuse and illness, Branwell Brontë dies in September at age thirty-one. In
December, Emily Brontë dies of tuberculosis after a short illness; she and her brother are buried at Haworth. Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair are published.
1849 Weakened and ill, Anne is diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis. Despite Charlotte’s protestations, she arranges to visit Scarborough. Accompanied by Charlotte and family friend Ellen Nussey, Anne uses her inheritance to lodge at the resort hotel and spa she first visited with the Robinsons.