Happy 200th Birthday, Anne Brontë! (Personal Tribute)

This year the Brontë Society are celebrating the fifth and the last of the five consecutive bicentenary birthdays in the literary Brontë family - that of Anne Brontë, who was born on today's date 200 years ago. Anne was the youngest of the four siblings surviving into adulthood. As a writer and artist she was overshadowed by her two more famous sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Despite being just as talented and productive as her sisters Anne ended up being "the other sister", her talent and works  unjustly underrated or undervalued. In her tragically short life (she was just 29 when she died) she wrote two novels, "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and also some poetry. Like her sisters and brother she was also a visual artist and created a number of drawings, paintings and sketches. I am not going to write much about Anne here, as there are many sites and articles about her elsewhere on the internet. For anyone wishing to learn more about Anne Brontë, as well as her sisters Charlotte and Emily, I recommend http://www.annebronte.org/ blog by Nick Holland, a Brontë expert and acclaimed writer, who also has an interesting new book out for Anne's bicentenary entitled "Crave The Rose".
On this occasion, as photographer, who is also a keen Brontëphile, I would just like to share my personal tribute to one of my Brontë muses in the form of still life image I created specially to mark Anne's big birthday.

All the props I used are objects taken from around my house. The portrait of Anne in an oval antique frame hangs on my living room wall. It is a portrait by Charlotte Brontë made in 1834 when Anne was 14. The flowers are white hellebores, also known as Christmas rose; I chose them because they flower at this time of the year, which is the time of year Anne was born in.

Today I am going to spend the day in Haworth, the beautiful village where Anne lived with the rest of her family and wrote all her literary works; the place I hope to live in before long, too. There is a preview in the Brontë Parsonage of this year's exhibition celebrating Anne's life, "Amid The Brave And Strong", which I'm very much looking forward to seeing.

Then, on Sunday I am going to Scarborough, the seaside resort on north Yorkshire coast which Anne loved and where she died. I am going to attend some of the celebratory events organized by the Brontë Society, including visiting Anne's grave. I am very excited about the day.

You can view my previous Brontë bicentenary tributes as follows: Charlotte's, Branwell's, Emily's.

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.”

~Anne Brontë~