Take Courage

A lively, intelligent tribute to the forgotten Bronte sister, Anne… Her indignation is salutary

Lucy Hughes-Hallet, Observer

A fascinating and compelling read... what Ellis does extraordinarily well is to convey the emotion of her own deeply personal voyage of discovery about Anne and herself... [makes] you long to rush off and reread Anne's novels and poetry: what more could you ask for?

Juliet Barker, Mail on Sunday

This is a very personal book about what the short life of Anne Bronte can tell us about wringing every drop out of existence… A great pleasure to read and a more fitting tribute to Anne than her gravestone in Scarborough.

Daisy Goodwin, The Times

A lovely and imaginative investigation into a serious and searching woman whose last words were "take courage". It's inspiring stuff

Eithne Farry, Sunday Express

The Brontës have spawned innumerable spin-offs and imitations, and Ellis cites and analyses many of them, from Hollywood movies to graphic novels, from television adaptations to stand-up comedy and online magazines. She has obsessively pursued them into every cultural realm, and she has read all the biographies, both scholarly and popular... It takes some time for an ageing reader to settle into this startling frame of reference, but once adjusted, the rewards are considerable

Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

Her personal approach is the source of both the book's immense charm and also its considerable power... ultimately the book is a deeply moving depiction of how reading and writing allows us to forge an emotional and intellectual connection with someone who died over a century before we were born... brilliant

Irish Times

Wonderful... Ellis lives and breathes Anne's life... the feeling of being a Bronte becomes movie-screen vivid... If the experience of reading Anne's poems feels for Ellis "like being let in on secrets", that feeling is mirrored for the reader of Ellis's illuminating book

Juliet Nicolson, Spectator

Take Courage is as much an account of Ellis’s own discovery of Anne's work as it is that of her subject’s life, and herein lies the book's unique appeal. Ellis – who is, it should be noted, as intelligent and perceptive a reader as she is an evocative storyteller – truly writes from the heart, which isn’t to say she hasn’t done her research... a deeply sympathetic and interesting re-evaluation of a woman ahead of her time who has much to teach us all about living courageously

Lucy Scholes, Independent

Anne is the Cinderella of the Bronte sisters... Anne was, in fact, the secret firebrand of the family... The dominance of the two elder sisters means that there remains a need to bring her out of the shadows. In Take Courage, Samantha Ellis has risen to the challenge... Take Courage is almost as much about Ellis's vicarious relationship with her subject as it as about Anne Bronte. If scholarly footnotes are your thing, it isn't for you. But if you want to share in a biographer's emotional journey, you will find insights aplenty. The account of Anne's death from TB at the age of 29 is truly moving

Lucasta Miller, Sunday Times