Editing Anne Brontë (section)

==A book of poems==
[[File:Bronte poems2.jpg|thumb|left|170px|Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. First edition]]
The Brontës were at home with their father during the summer of 1845. None had any immediate prospect of employment. Charlotte found Emily's poems, which had been shared only with Anne. Charlotte said that they should be published. Anne showed her own poems to Charlotte, and Charlotte "thought that these verses too had a sweet sincere pathos of their own".<ref>
{{cite web
 |url          = http://womenshistory.about.com/od/writers19th/a/brontes_by_char.htm
 |title        = About Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, by Charlotte Brontë
 |website    = about.com
 |access-date  = 8 October 2009
 |url-status   = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20130226084835/http://womenshistory.about.com/od/writers19th/a/brontes_by_char.htm
 |archive-date = 26 February 2013
}}
</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gaskell|first=Elizabeth Cleghorn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WpZMAAAAcAAJ|title=The Life of Charlotte Brontë: Author of "Jane Eyre", "Shirley", "Villette", Etc|date=1857|publisher=D. Appleton and Company|pages=299}}</ref> The sisters eventually reached an agreement.{{clarify|reason=about?|date=December 2020}} They told nobody what they were doing. With the money from Elizabeth Branwell they paid for publication of a collection of poems, 21 from Anne and 21 from Emily and 19 from Charlotte.<ref name="Oxcomp"/>

The book was published under [[pen name]]s which retained their initials but concealed their sex.<ref name="Barker 480">Barker, ''The Brontës'', p. 480</ref> Anne's pseudonym was Acton Bell. ''[[Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell]]'' was available for sale in May 1846. The cost of publication was 31 pounds and 10 shillings, about three-quarters of Anne's salary at Thorp Green.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gaskell|first=Elizabeth Cleghorn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WpZMAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA302|title=The Life of Charlotte Brontë: Author of "Jane Eyre", "Shirley", "Villette", Etc|publisher=D. Appleton and Company|year=1857|pages=302}}</ref><ref>{{citation|last=Brontë|first=Charlotte|title=1848–1851|date=6 April 2000|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00186258|work=The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, Vol. 2: 1848–1851|pages=67|editor-last=Smith|editor-first=Margaret|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oseo/instance.00186258|isbn=978-0-19-818598-7|access-date=21 May 2021}}</ref> On 7 May 1846 the first three copies were delivered to Haworth Parsonage.<ref name="Barker 491">Barker, ''The Brontës'', p. 491</ref> The book achieved three somewhat favourable reviews, but was a commercial failure, with only two copies sold in the first year. Anne nonetheless found a market for her later poetry. The ''Leeds Intelligencer'' and ''Fraser's Magazine'' published her poem ''The Narrow Way'' under her pseudonym in December 1848. Four months earlier, Fraser's Magazine had published her poem ''The Three Guides''.