![The Brontë Sisters by Patrick Branwell Brontë restored](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/The_Bront%C3%AB_Sisters_by_Patrick_Branwell_Bront%C3%AB_restored.jpg)
The Brontës () were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of
Thornton and later associated with the village of
Haworth
Haworth () is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines, south-west of Keighley, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages includ ...
in the
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The sisters,
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
(1816–1855),
Emily (1818–1848), and
Anne
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie.
Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...
(1820–1849), are well-known poets and novelists. Like many contemporary female writers, they published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, originally. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' was the first to know success, while Emily's ''
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', Anne's ''
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phe ...
'' and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature later.
The three sisters and their brother,
Branwell (1817–1848), were very close. As children, they developed their imaginations first through oral storytelling and play, set in an intricate imaginary world, and then through the collaborative writing of increasingly complex stories set in their fictional world. The deaths of their mother and two older sisters marked them and influenced their writing profoundly, as did their isolated upbringing. They were raised in a religious family. The Brontë birthplace in
Thornton is a place of pilgrimage and their later home, the
parsonage at
Haworth
Haworth () is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines, south-west of Keighley, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages includ ...
in Yorkshire, now the
Brontë Parsonage Museum
The Brontë Parsonage Museum is a writer's house museum maintained by the Brontë Society in honour of the Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The museum is in the former Brontë family home, the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorks ...
, has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Origin of the name
The Brontë family can be traced to the
Irish clan
Irish clans are traditional kinship groups sharing a common surname and heritage and existing in a lineage-based society, originating prior to the 17th century. A clan (or ''fine'' in Irish) included the chief and his patrilineal relatives; howe ...
''Ó Pronntaigh'', which literally means "descendant of Pronntach". They were a family of hereditary scribes and literary men in
Fermanagh
Historically, Fermanagh ( ga, Fir Manach), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of a ...
. The version ''Ó Proinntigh'', which was first given by Patrick Woulfe in his ' ()
[Woulfe, Patrick, ''Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames'' (Baile Atha Cliath: M. H. Gill, 1922), p. 79] and reproduced without question by
Edward MacLysaght
Edgeworth Lysaght, later Edward Anthony Edgeworth Lysaght, and from 1920 Edward MacLysaght ( ga, Éamonn Mac Giolla Iasachta; 6 November 1887 – 4 March 1986) was a genealogist of twentieth century Ireland. His numerous books on Irish surnames ...
''
inter alia'', cannot be accepted as correct, as there were a number of well-known scribes with this name writing in
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
in the 17th and 18th centuries and all of them used the spelling ''Ó Pronntaigh''. The name is derived from the word or , which is related to the word , meaning "giving" or "bestowal" ( is given as an
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...
version of in O'Reilly's ''Irish English Dictionary''.) Patrick Woulfe, the author of ', suggested that it was derived from (the
refectory
A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries. The name derives from the La ...
of a
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...
).
[ ''Ó Pronntaigh'' was earlier ]anglicised
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
as ''Prunty'' and sometimes ''Brunty''.
At some point, the father of the sisters, Patrick Brontë
Patrick Brontë (, commonly ; born Patrick Brunty; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish Anglican priest and author who spent most of his adult life in England. He was the father of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and of ...
(born Brunty), decided on the alternative spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal to indicate that the name has two syllables. Multiple theories exist to account for the change as well, including that he may have wished to hide his humble origins.[ As a ]man of letters
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
, he would have been familiar with classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and may have chosen the name after the Greek (). One view, which biographer C. K. Shorter proposed in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte
The Dukedom of Bronte ( it, Ducato/Ducea di Bronte ("Duchy of Bronte")) was a dukedom with the title Duke of Bronte ( it, Duca di Bronte), referring to the town of Bronte in the province of Catania, Sicily. It was granted on 10 October 1799 at Pa ...
. One might also find evidence for this theory in Patrick Brontë’s desire to associate himself with the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...
in his form of dress.
Members of the Brontë family
Patrick Brontë
Patrick Brontë
Patrick Brontë (, commonly ; born Patrick Brunty; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish Anglican priest and author who spent most of his adult life in England. He was the father of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and of ...
(17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861), the Brontë sisters' father, was born in Loughbrickland
Loughbrickland ( or ; ) is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland, south of Banbridge on the main Belfast to Dublin road. In the 2011 Census it had a population of 693. Loughbrickland is within the Banbridge District.
History
Lo ...
, County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...
, Ireland, of a family of farm workers of moderate means. His birth name was Patrick Prunty or Brunty. His mother, Alice McClory, was of the Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
faith, whilst his father Hugh was a Protestant, and Patrick was brought up in his father's faith.
He was a bright young man and, after studying under the Rev. Thomas Tighe, won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...
. There, he studied divinity, ancient history, and modern history. Attending Cambridge may have made him feel that his name was too Irish and he changed its spelling to Brontë (and its pronunciation accordingly), perhaps in honour of Horatio Nelson
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought abo ...
, whom Patrick admired. It is more likely, however, that his brother William was 'on the run' from the authorities for his involvement with the radical United Irishmen
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, ...
, leading Patrick to distance himself from the name Prunty. Having obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, he was ordained on 10 August 1806. He is the author of ''Cottage Poems'' (1811), ''The Rural Minstrel'' (1814), numerous pamphlets, several newspaper articles, and various rural poems.
In 1811, Patrick was appointed minister at Hartshead cum Clifton. In 1812, he met and married 29 year old Maria Branwell at Guiseley. In 1813, they moved to Clough House Hightown, Liversedge, West Riding of Yorkshire and by 1820 they had moved into the parsonage at Haworth, where he took up the post of perpetual curate
Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland (name of the combined Anglican churches of England and Ireland from 1800 to 1871). The term is found in common use mainly du ...
. (Haworth was an ancient chapelry in the large parish of Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
, so he could not be rector or vicar.) They had six children. On the death of his wife in 1821, his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Branwell
Elizabeth Branwell (1776 – 29 October 1842) was the aunt of the literary sisters Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.
Called 'Aunt Branwell', she helped raise the Brontë children after her sister, Maria Branwell, died in 1821. S ...
, came from Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
, Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, to help him bring up the children. Open, intelligent, generous, and dedicated to educating his children personally, he bought all the books and toys the children desired. He also accorded them great freedom and unconditional love, although he may have alienated them from the world due to his eccentric personal habits and peculiar theories of education.
After several failed attempts to remarry, Patrick accepted permanent widowerhood at the age of 47, and spent his time visiting the sick and the poor, giving sermons and administering communion. In so doing, he would often leave his children Maria, Elizabeth, Emily, Charlotte, Branwell and Anne alone with Elizabeth - Aunt Branwell and a maid, Tabitha Aykroyd (Tabby). Tabby helped relieve their possible boredom and loneliness especially by recounting local legends in her Yorkshire dialect as she tirelessly prepared the family’s meals. Eventually, Patrick would survive his entire family. Six years after Charlotte's death, he died in 1861 at the age of 84.[ His son-in-law, the Rev. ]Arthur Bell Nicholls
Arthur Bell Nicholls (6 January 1819 – 2 December 1906) was the husband of the English novelist Charlotte Brontë. Between 1845 and 1861 Nicholls was one of Patrick Brontë's curates and was married to his eldest surviving child, Charlotte, f ...
, would aid Mr Brontë at the end of his life as well.
Maria, née Branwell
Patrick's wife Maria Brontë
Maria Brontë (, ''commonly'' ; 23 April 1814 – 6 May 1825) was the eldest daughter of Patrick Brontë and Maria Brontë, née Branwell.
She was the elder sister of Elizabeth Brontë, writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and of pain ...
, née Branwell, (15 April 1783 – 15 September 1821), was born in Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
, Cornwall, and came from a comfortably well off, middle-class family. Her father had a flourishing tea and grocery store and had accumulated considerable wealth. Maria died at the age of 38 of uterine cancer
Uterine cancer, also known as womb cancer, includes two types of cancer that develop from the tissues of the uterus. Endometrial cancer forms from the lining of the uterus, and uterine sarcoma forms from the muscles or support tissue of the uteru ...
. She married the same day as her younger sister Charlotte in the church at Guiseley
Guiseley ( ) is a town in metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Otley and Menston and is now a north-western suburb of Leeds.
It sits in th ...
after her fiancé had celebrated the union of two other couples. She was a literate and pious woman, known for her lively spirit, joyfulness, and tenderness, and it was she who designed the samplers that are on display in the museum and had them embroidered by her children. She left memories with her husband and with Charlotte, the oldest surviving sibling, of a very vivacious woman. The younger ones, particularly Emily and Anne, admitted to retaining only vague images of their mother, especially of her suffering on her sickbed.
Elizabeth Branwell
Elizabeth Branwell (2 December 1776 – 29 October 1842) arrived from Penzance in 1821, aged 45, after the death of Maria, her younger sister, to help Patrick look after the children, and was known as 'Aunt Branwell'. Elizabeth Branwell, who raised the children after the death of their mother, was a Methodist. It seems, nevertheless, that her denomination did not exert any influence on the children. It was Aunt Branwell who taught the children arithmetic, the alphabet, how to sew, embroider and cross-stitch, skills appropriate for ladies. Aunt Branwell also gave them books and subscribed to ''Fraser's Magazine'', less interesting than ''Blackwood's'', but, nevertheless, providing plenty of material for discussion. She was a generous person who dedicated her life to her nieces and nephew, neither marrying nor returning to visit her relations in Cornwall. She died of bowel obstruction
Bowel obstruction, also known as intestinal obstruction, is a mechanical or Ileus, functional obstruction of the Gastrointestinal tract#Lower gastrointestinal tract, intestines which prevents the normal movement of the products of digestion. Eith ...
in October 1842, after a brief agony: she was comforted by her beloved nephew Branwell. In her last will, Aunt Branwell left to her three nieces the considerable sum of £900 (about £95,700 in 2017 currency), which allowed them to resign their low-paid jobs as governesses and teachers.
Children
Maria
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
* 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
* Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...
(1814–1825), the eldest, was born in Clough House, Hightown, Liversedge, West Yorkshire, on 23 April 1814. She suffered from hunger, cold, and privation at Cowan Bridge School
Cowan Bridge School refers to the Clergy Daughters' School, a school mainly for the daughters of middle class clergy founded in the 1820s. It was first located in the village of Cowan Bridge in the English county of Lancashire, where it was ...
. Charlotte described her as very lively, very sensitive, and particularly advanced in her reading. She returned from school with an advanced case of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
and died at Haworth at the age of 11 on 6 May 1825.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
(1815–1825), the second child, joined her sister Maria at Cowan Bridge where she suffered the same fate. Elizabeth was less vivacious than her brother and her sisters and apparently less advanced for her age. She died on 15 June 1825 at the age of 10, within two weeks of returning home to her father.
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
(1816–1855), born in Market Street Thornton, near Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 21 April 1816, was a poet and novelist and is the author of ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', her best known work, and three other novels. She died on 31 March 1855 just before reaching the age of 39.
Patrick Branwell (1817–1848) was born in Market Street Thornton on 26 June 1817. Known as ''Branwell'', he was a painter, writer and casual worker. He became addicted to alcohol and laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
and died at Haworth on 24 September 1848 at the age of 31.
Emily Jane (1818–1848), born in Market Street Thornton, 30 July 1818, was a poet and novelist. She died in Haworth on 19 December 1848 at the age of 30. ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'' was her only novel.
Anne
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie.
Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...
(1820–1849), born in Market Street Thornton on 17 January 1820, was a poet and novelist. She wrote a largely autobiographical novel entitled ''Agnes Grey
''Agnes Grey, A Novel'' is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as ...
'', but her second novel, ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phe ...
'' (1848), was far more ambitious. She died on 28 May 1849 in Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
at the age of 29.
Education
Cowan Bridge School
In 1824, the four eldest girls (excluding Anne) entered the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, which educated the children of less prosperous members of the clergy, and had been recommended to Mr Brontë. The following year, Maria and Elizabeth fell gravely ill and were removed from the school, but died on 6 May and 15 June 1825, respectively. Charlotte and Emily were also withdrawn from the school and returned to Haworth. Charlotte expressed the traumatic impact that her sisters’ deaths had on her in her future works. In ''Jane Eyre'', Cowan Bridge became Lowood, Maria inspired the young Helen Burns, the cruel mistress Miss Andrews inspired the headmistress Miss Scatcherd, and the tyrannical headmaster Rev. Carus Wilson, Mr Brocklehurst.
Tuberculosis, which afflicted Maria and Elizabeth in 1825, also caused the eventual deaths of three of the surviving Brontës: Branwell in September 1848, Emily in December 1848, and, finally, Anne in May 1849.
Patrick Brontë faced a challenge in arranging for the education of the girls of his family, which was barely middle class. They lacked significant connections and he could not afford the fees for them to attend an established school for young ladies. One solution was the schools where the fees were reduced to a minimum – so called "charity schools" – with a mission to assist families like those of the lower clergy. One cannot accuse Mr. Brontë of not having done everything possible to find a solution that he thought would be best for his daughters.
(Barker had read in the ''Leeds Intelligencer'' of 6 November 1823 reports of cases in the Court of Commons in Bowes: he later read of other cases, of 24 November 1824 near Richmond, in the county of Yorkshire, where pupils had been discovered gnawed by rats and suffering so badly from malnutrition that some of them had lost their sight. ) Yet for Patrick, there was nothing to suggest that the Reverend Carus Wilson's Clergy Daughters' School would not provide a good education and good care for his daughters. The school was not expensive and its patrons (supporters who allowed the school to use their names) were all respected people. Among these was the daughter of Hannah More
Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a ...
, a religious author and philanthropist who took a particular interest in education. Mrs More was a close friend of the poet William Cowper
William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scen ...
, who, like her, advocated extensive, proper, and well-rounded education for young girls. The pupils included the offspring of different prelates and even certain acquaintances of Patrick Brontë including William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...
, young women whose fathers had also been educated at St John's College, Cambridge. Thus Brontë believed Wilson's school to have many of the necessary guarantees needed for his daughters to receive proper schooling.
John Bradley
In 1829–30, Patrick Brontë engaged John Bradley, an artist from neighbouring Keighley
Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish
in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of Bi ...
, as drawing-master for the children. Bradley was an artist of some local repute rather than a professional instructor, but he may well have fostered Branwell's enthusiasm for art and architecture.
Miss Wooler's school
In 1831, 14-year-old Charlotte was enrolled at the school of Miss Wooler in Roe Head, Mirfield
Mirfield () is a town and civil parish in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is on the A644 road between Brighouse and Dewsbury. At the 2011 census it had a population of 19,563. Mirfield ...
. Patrick could have sent his daughter to a less costly school in Keighley
Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish
in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of Bi ...
nearer home but Miss Wooler and her sisters had a good reputation and he remembered the building, which he passed when strolling around the parishes of Kirklees
Kirklees is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, governed by Kirklees Council with the status of a metropolitan borough. The largest town and administrative centre of Kirklees is Huddersfield, and the district also includes ...
, Dewsbury
Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...
, and Hartshead-cum-Clifton where he was vicar. Margaret Wooler showed fondness towards the sisters and she accompanied Charlotte to the altar at her marriage. Patrick's choice of school was excellent – Charlotte was happy there and studied well. She made many lifelong friends, in particular Ellen Nussey
Ellen Nussey (20 April 1817 – 26 November 1897) was born in Birstall Smithies in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. She was a lifelong friend and correspondent of writer Charlotte Brontë and, through more than 500 letters received from ...
and Mary Taylor who later went to New Zealand before returning to England. Charlotte returned from Roe Head in June 1832, missing her friends, but happy to rejoin her family.
Three years later, Miss Wooler offered her former pupil a position as her assistant. The family decided that Emily would accompany her to pursue studies that would otherwise have been unaffordable. Emily's fees were partly covered by Charlotte's salary. Emily was 17 and it was the first time she had left Haworth since leaving Cowan Bridge. On 29 July 1835, the sisters left for Roe Head. The same day, Branwell wrote a letter to the Royal Academy of Art
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
in London, to present several of his drawings as part of his candidature as a probationary student.
Charlotte taught, and wrote about her students without much sympathy. Emily did not settle: after three months her health seemed to decline and she had to be taken home to the parsonage. Anne took her place and stayed until Christmas 1837.
Charlotte avoided boredom by following the developments of the imaginary Empire of Angria - invented by Charlotte and Bramwell - that she received in letters from her brother. During holidays at Haworth, she wrote long narratives while being reproached by her father who wanted her to become more involved in parish affairs. These were coming to a head over the imposition of the Church of England rates, a local tax levied on parishes where the majority of the population were dissenters. In the meantime, Miss Wooler moved to Heald's House, at Dewsbury Moor
Dewsbury Moor is a district of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies to the west of the Dewsbury town centre. The population is around 5,650. Crime rates are higher than the national avera ...
, where Charlotte complained about the humidity that made her unwell. Upon leaving the establishment in 1838 Miss Wooler presented her with a parting gift of ''The Vision of Don Roderick and Rokeby'', a collection of poems by Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
.
Literary evolution
The children became interested in writing from an early age, initially as a game. They all displayed a talent for narrative, but for the younger ones it became a pastime to develop them. At the centre of the children's creativity were twelve wooden soldiers which Patrick Brontë gave to Branwell at the beginning of June 1826. These toy soldiers instantly fired their imaginations and they spoke of them as ''the Young Men'', and gave them names. However, it was not until December 1827 that their ideas took written form, and the imaginary African kingdom of Glass Town came into existence, followed by the Empire of Angria. Emily and Anne created Gondal, an island continent in the North Pacific, ruled by a woman, after the departure of Charlotte in 1831. In the beginning, these stories were written in ''little books'', the size of a matchbox and cursorily bound with thread. The pages were filled with close, minute writing, often in capital letters without punctuation and embellished with illustrations, detailed maps, schemes, landscapes, and plans of buildings, created by the children according to their specialisations. The idea was that the books were of a size for the soldiers to read. The complexity of the stories matured as the children's imaginations developed, fed by reading the three weekly or monthly magazines to which their father had subscribed, or the newspapers that were bought daily from John Greenwood's local news and stationery store.
Literary and artistic influence
These fictional worlds were the product of fertile imagination fed by reading, discussion, and a passion for literature. Far from suffering from the negative influences that never left them and which were reflected in the works of their later, more mature years, the Brontë children absorbed them with open arms.
Press
The periodicals that Patrick Brontë read were a mine of information for his children. The ''Leeds Intelligencer
The ''Leeds Intelligencer'', or ''Leedes Intelligencer'', was one of the first regional newspapers in Great Britain. It was founded in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, in 1754 and first published on 2 July 1754. It was a weekly paper unt ...
'' and ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'', conservative and well written, but better than the ''Quarterly Review
The ''Quarterly Review'' was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River ...
'' that defended the same political ideas whilst addressing a less refined readership (the reason Mr. Brontë did not read it), were exploited in every detail. ''Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
'' in particular, was not only the source of their knowledge of world affairs, but also provided material for the Brontës' early writing. For instance, an article in the June 1826 number of ''Blackwood’s'', provides commentary on new discoveries from the exploration of central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...
. The map included with the article highlights geographical features the Brontës reference in their tales: the Jibbel Kumera (the Mountains of the Moon), Ashantee, and the rivers Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languages[Calabar
Calabar (also referred to as Callabar, Calabari, Calbari and Kalabar) is the capital city of Cross River State, Nigeria. It was originally named Akwa Akpa, in the Efik language. The city is adjacent to the Calabar and Great Kwa rivers and cre ...](_blank)
. The author also advises the British to expand into Africa from Fernando Po, where, Christine Alexander notes, the Brontë children locate the Great Glass Town. Their knowledge of geography was completed by Goldsmith's ''Grammar of General Geography'', which the Brontës owned and annotated heavily.
Lord Byron
From 1833, Charlotte and Branwell's Angrian tales begin to feature Byronic hero
The Byronic hero is a variant of the Romantic hero as a type of character, named after the English Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both Byron's own persona as well as characters from his writings are considered to provide defining features to the char ...
es who have a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit, and demonstrate arrogance and even black-heartedness. Again, it is in an article in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' from August 1825 that they discover the poet for the first time; he had died the previous year. From this moment, the name Byron became synonymous with all the prohibitions and audacities as if it had stirred up the very essence of the rise of those forbidden things. Branwell's Charlotte Zamorna, one of the heroes of '' Verdopolis'', tends towards increasingly ambiguous behaviour, and the same influence and evolution recur with the Brontës, especially in the characters of Heathcliff in ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', and Mr. Rochester
Edward Fairfax Rochester (often referred to as Mr Rochester) is a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel ''Jane Eyre''. The brooding master of Thornfield Hall, Rochester is the employer and eventual husband of the novel's titular protagonist ...
in ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', who display the traits of a Byronic hero
The Byronic hero is a variant of the Romantic hero as a type of character, named after the English Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both Byron's own persona as well as characters from his writings are considered to provide defining features to the char ...
. Numerous other works left their mark on the Brontës—the ''Thousand and One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
'' for example, which inspired jinn
Jinn ( ar, , ') – also Romanization of Arabic, romanized as djinn or Anglicization, anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources)
– are Invisibility, invisible creatures in early Arabian mytho ...
in which they became themselves in the centre of their kingdoms, while adding a touch of exoticism.
John Martin
The children's imagination was also influenced by three prints of engravings in mezzotint
Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonali ...
by John Martin around 1820. Charlotte and Branwell made copies of the prints ''Belshazzar's Feast
Belshazzar's feast, or the story of the writing on the wall (chapter 5 in the Book of Daniel), tells how Belshazzar holds a great feast and drinks from the vessels that had been looted in the destruction of the First Temple. A hand appears and ...
'', ''Déluge'', and ''Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon'' (1816), which hung on the walls of the parsonage.
Martin's fantastic architecture is reflected in the Glass Town
The Glass Town is a paracosm created and written as a shared fantasy world by Charlotte Brontë, Branwell Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, siblings of the Brontë family. It was initiated by Charlotte and her brother Branwell; Emily and A ...
and Angrian writings, where he appears himself among Branwell's characters and under the name of Edward de Lisle, the greatest painter and portraitist of Verdopolis, the capital of Glass Town. One of Sir Edward de Lisle's major works, ''Les Quatre Genii en Conseil'', is inspired by Martin's illustration for John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
's ''Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...
''. Together with Byron, John Martin seems to have been one of the artistic influences essential to the Brontës' universe.
Anne's morals and realism
The influence revealed by ''Agnes Grey
''Agnes Grey, A Novel'' is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as ...
'' and ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phe ...
'' is much less clear. Anne's works are largely founded on her experience as a governess and on that of her brother's decline. Furthermore, they demonstrate her conviction, a legacy from her father, that books should provide moral education. This sense of moral duty and the need to record it, are more evident in ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall''. The influence of the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe
Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for G ...
, Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
, Gregory "Monk" Lewis and Charles Maturin
Charles Robert Maturin, also known as C. R. Maturin (25 September 1780 – 30 October 1824), was an Irish Protestant clergyman (ordained in the Church of Ireland) and a writer of Gothic plays and novels.Chris Morgan, "Maturin, Charles R(obert) ...
is noticeable, and that of Walter Scott too, if only because the heroine, abandoned and left alone, resists importunities not only through her almost supernatural talents, but by her powerful temperament.
''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', ''Agnes Grey'', ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'', ''Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
'', '' Villette'' and even '' The Professor'' present a linear structure concerning characters who advance through life after several trials and tribulations, to find a kind of happiness in love and virtue, recalling works of religious inspiration of the 17th century such as John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; baptised 30 November 162831 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress,'' which also became an influential literary model. In addition ...
's ''Pilgrim's Progress
''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christianity, Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of theological fiction in English literature and a prog ...
'' or his ''Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners''. In a more profane manner, the hero or heroine follows a picaresque
The picaresque novel (Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for " rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrup ...
itinerary such as in Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
(1547–1616), Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
(1660–1731), Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
(1707–1764) and Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett (baptised 19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for picaresque novels such as ''The Adventures of Roderick Random'' (1748), ''The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle'' (1751) a ...
(1721–1771). This lively tradition continued into the 19th century with the ''rags to riches'' genre to which almost all the great Victorian romancers have contributed. The protagonist is thrown by fate into poverty and after many difficulties achieves a golden happiness. Often an artifice is employed to effect the passage from one state to another such as an unexpected inheritance, a miraculous gift, grand reunions, etc,[See '']Oliver Twist
''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with ...
'', ''David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
'', ''Great Expectations
''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It ...
'', just to mention Charles Dickens and in a sense it is the route followed by Charlotte's and Anne's protagonists, even if the riches they win are more those of the heart than of the wallet. Apart from its Gothic elements, ''Wuthering Heights'' moves like a Greek tragedy and possesses its music, the cosmic dimensions of the epics of John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
, and the power of the Shakespearian theatre. One can hear the echoes of ''King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...
'' as well as the completely different characters of ''Romeo and Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...
''. The Brontës were also seduced by the writings of Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
, and in 1834 Charlotte exclaimed, "For fiction, read Walter Scott and only him – all novels after his are without value."
Governesses and Charlotte's idea
Early teaching opportunities
Through their father's influence and their own intellectual curiosity, they were able to benefit from an education that placed them among knowledgeable people, but Mr Brontë's emoluments were modest. The only options open to the girls were either marriage or a choice between the professions of school mistress or governess
A governess is a largely obsolete term for a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching. In contrast to a nanny, th ...
. The Brontë sisters found positions in families wherein they educated often rebellious young children, or found employment as school teachers. The possibility of becoming a paid companion to a rich and solitary woman might have been a fall-back role but one that would have probably bored any of the sisters intolerably. Janet Todd
Janet Margaret Todd OBE (born 10 September 1942) is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Ma ...
's ''Mary Wollstonecraft, a revolutionary life'' mentions the predicament.
Only Emily never became a governess. Her sole professional experience would be an experiment in teaching during six months of intolerable exile in Miss Patchett's school at Law Hill (between Haworth
Haworth () is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines, south-west of Keighley, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages includ ...
and Halifax). In contrast, Charlotte had teaching positions at Miss Margaret Wooler's school and in Brussels with the Hégers. She became governess to the Sidgwicks, the Stonegappes, and the Lotherdales where she worked for several months in 1839, then with Mrs White, at Upperhouse House, Rawdon, from March to September 1841. Anne became a governess and worked for Mrs Ingham, at Blake Hall, Mirfield from April to December 1839, then for Mrs Robinson at Thorp Green Hall, Little Ouseburn, near York, where she also obtained employment for her brother in a futile attempt to stabilise him.
Working as governesses
The family's finances did not flourish, and Aunt Branwell spent the money with caution. Emily had a visceral need of her home and the countryside that surrounded it, and to leave it would cause her to languish and wither.[Which had happened whenever she left Haworth for any length of time such as at Miss Wooler's school, or when teaching in Law Hill, and during her stay in Brussels.] Charlotte and Anne, being more realistic, did not hesitate in finding work and from April 1839 to December 1841 the two sisters had several posts as governesses. Not staying long with each family, their employment would last for some months or a single season. However, Anne did stay with the Robinsons in Thorp Green where things went well, from May 1840 to June 1845.
In the meantime, Charlotte had an idea that would place all the advantages on her side. On advice from her father and friends, she thought that she and her sisters had the intellectual capacity to create a school for young girls in the parsonage where their Sunday School classes took place. It was agreed to offer the future pupils the opportunity of correctly learning modern languages and that preparation for this should be done abroad, which led to a further decision. Among the possibilities, Paris and Lille were considered, but were rejected due to aversion to the French. Indeed, the French revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and the Napoleonic wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
had not been forgotten by the Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
-spirited and deeply conservative girls. On the recommendation of a pastor based in Brussels, who wanted to be of help, Belgium was chosen, where they could also study German, and music. Aunt Branwell provided the funds for the Brussels project.
School project and study trip to Brussels
Charlotte's and Emily's journey to Brussels
Emily and Charlotte arrived in Brussels in February 1842 accompanied by their father. Once there, they enrolled at Monsieur and Madame Héger's boarding school in the Rue d'Isabelle, for six months. Claire Héger was the second wife of Constantin, and it was she who founded and directed the school while Constantin had the responsibility for the higher French classes. According to Miss Wheelwright, a former pupil, he had the intellect of a genius. He was passionate about his auditorium, demanding many lectures, perspectives, and structured analyses. He was also a good-looking man with regular features, bushy hair, very black whiskers, and wore an excited expression while sounding forth on great authors about whom he invited his students to make a pastiche
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it ...
on general or philosophical themes.[Nicoll, W. Robertson (1908) ''The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë – Introductory Essay'', p. XXI.]
The lessons, especially those of Constantin Héger, were very much appreciated by Charlotte, and the two sisters showed exceptional intelligence, although Emily hardly liked her teacher and was somewhat rebellious. Emily learned German and to play the piano with natural brilliance and very quickly the two sisters were writing literary and philosophical essays in an advanced level of French. After six months of study, Mme Héger suggested they stay at the boarding school free of charge, in return for giving some lessons. After much hesitation, the girls accepted. Neither of them felt particularly attached to their students, and only one, Mademoiselle de Bassompierre, then aged 16, later expressed any affection for her teacher Emily, which appeared to be mutual, and made her a gift of a signed, detailed drawing of a storm ravaged pine tree.
Return and recall
The death of their aunt in October of the same year forced them to return once more to Haworth. Aunt Branwell had left all her worldly goods in equal shares to her nieces and to Eliza Kingston, a cousin in Penzance, which had the immediate effect of purging all their debts and providing a small reserve of funds. Nevertheless, they were asked to return to the Heger's boarding school in Brussels as they were regarded as being competent and were needed. They were each offered teaching posts in the boarding school, English for Charlotte and music for Emily. However, Charlotte returned alone to Belgium in January 1843. Emily remained critical of Monsieur Heger, in spite of the excellent opinion he held of her. He later stated that she 'had the spirit of a man', and would probably become a great traveller due to her being gifted with a superior faculty of reason that allowed her to deduce ancient knowledge from new spheres of knowledge, and her unbending willpower would have triumphed over all obstacles.
Charlotte returns
Almost a year to the day, enamoured for some time for Monsieur Héger, Charlotte resigned and returned to Haworth. Her life at the school had not been without suffering, and on one occasion she ventured into the cathedral and entered a confessional. She may have had intention of converting to Catholicism, but it would only have been for a short time. During her absence, life at Haworth had become more difficult. Mr. Brontë had lost his sight although his cataract had been operated on with success in Manchester, and it was there in August 1846, when Charlotte arrived at his bedside that she began to write ''Jane Eyre''. Meanwhile, her brother Branwell fell into a rapid decline punctuated by dramas, drunkenness, and delirium. Due partly to Branwell's poor reputation, the school project failed and was abandoned.
Charlotte wrote four long, very personal, and sometimes vague letters to Monsieur Héger that never received replies. The extent of Charlotte Brontë's feelings for Héger were not fully realised until 1913, when her letters to him were published for the first time. Héger had first shown them to Mrs. Gaskell when she visited him in 1856 while researching her biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë
''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'' is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.
The first edition was published in 1857 by Smith, Elder & Co. A major source was the hundreds of letters sent by Brontë ...
'', but she concealed their true significance. These letters, referred to as the "Héger Letters", had been ripped up at some stage by Héger, but his wife had retrieved the pieces from the wastepaper bin and meticulously glued or sewn them back together. Paul Héger, Constantin's son, and his sisters gave these letters to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, and they were shortly thereafter printed in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' newspaper.
Brontë sisters' literary career
First publication: ''Poems'', by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
The writing that had begun so early never left the family. Charlotte had ambition like her brother, and wrote to the poet laureate
A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...
Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
to submit several poems in his style (though Branwell was kept at a distance from her project). She received a hardly encouraging reply after several months. Southey, still illustrious today although his star has somewhat waned, was one of the great figures of English Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, along with William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...
, and he shared the prejudice of the times; literature, or more particularly poetry (for women had been publishing fiction and enjoying critical, popular and economic success for over a century by this time), was considered a man's business, and not an appropriate occupation for ladies.
However, Charlotte did not allow herself to be discouraged. Furthermore, coincidence came to her aid. One day in autumn 1845 while alone in the dining room she noticed a small notebook lying open in the drawer of Emily's portable writing desk and "of my sister Emily's handwriting". She read it and was dazzled by the beauty of the poems that she did not know. The discovery of this treasure was what she recalled five years later, and according to Juliet Barker, she erased the excitement that she had felt "more than surprise ..., a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had a peculiar music – wild, melancholy, and elevating." In the following paragraph Charlotte describes her sister's indignant reaction at her having ventured into such an intimate realm with impunity. It took Emily hours to calm down and days to be convinced to publish the poems.
Charlotte envisaged a joint publication by the three sisters. Anne was easily won over to the project, and the work was shared, compared, and edited. Once the poems had been chosen, nineteen for Charlotte and twenty-one each for Anne and Emily, Charlotte went about searching for a publisher. She took advice from William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, directors of one of their favourite magazines, ''Chambers's Edinburgh Journal''. It is thought, although no documents exist to support the claim, that they advised the sisters to contact Aylott & Jones, a small publishing house at 8, Paternoster Row, London, who accepted, but at the authors' own risk since they felt the commercial risk to the company was too great. The work thus appeared in 1846, published using the male pseudonyms of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. These were very uncommon forenames but the initials of each of the sisters were preserved and the patronym could have been inspired by that of the vicar of the parish, Arthur Bell Nicholls. It was in fact on 18 May 1845 that he took up his duties at Haworth, at the moment when the publication project was well advanced.
The book attracted hardly any attention. Only three copies were sold, of which one was purchased by Fredrick Enoch, a resident of Cornmarket, Warwick, who in admiration, wrote to the publisher to request an autograph – the only extant single document carrying the three authors' signatures in their pseudonyms, and they continued creating their prose, each one producing a book a year later. Each worked in secret, unceasingly discussing their writing for hours at the dinner table, after which their father would open the door at 9 p.m. with "Don't stay up late, girls!", then rewinding the clock and taking the stairs to his room upstairs.
Fame
1847
Charlotte's ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', Emily's ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', and Anne's ''Agnes Grey
''Agnes Grey, A Novel'' is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as ...
'', appeared in 1847 after many tribulations, again for reasons of finding a publisher. The packets containing the manuscripts were often returned to the parsonage and Charlotte simply added a new address; she did this at least a dozen times during the year. The first one was finally published by Smith, Elder & Co in London. The 23-year-old owner, George Smith, had specialised in publishing scientific revues, aided by his perspicacious reader William Smith Williams. Emily and Anne's manuscripts were confided to Thomas Cautley Newby
Thomas Cautley Newby (1797/1798 – 1882) was an English publisher and printer based in London.
Newby published ''Wuthering Heights'' by Emily Brontë and both Anne Brontë's novels, ''Agnes Grey'' and ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
''T ...
, who intended to compile a ''three-decker''; more economical for sale and for loan in the "circulating libraries". The two first volumes included ''Wuthering Heights'' and the third one ''Agnes Grey''. Both novels attracted critical acclaim, occasionally harsh about ''Wuthering Heights'', praised for the originality of the subject and its narrative style, but viewed with suspicion because of its outrageous violence and immorality – surely, the critics wrote, a work of a man with a depraved mind. Critics were fairly neutral about ''Agnes Grey'', but more flattering for ''Jane Eyre'', which soon became a best-seller
A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...
, despite some commentators denouncing it as an affront to good morals.
''Jane Eyre'' and rising fame
The pseudonymous (Currer Bell) publication in 1847 of ''Jane Eyre, An Autobiography'' established a dazzling reputation for Charlotte. In July 1848, Charlotte and Anne (Emily had refused to go along with them) travelled by train to London to prove to Smith, Elder & Co. that each sister was indeed an independent author, for Thomas Cautley Newby, the publisher of ''Wuthering Heights'' and ''Agnes Grey'', had launched a rumour that the three novels were the work of one author, understood to be Ellis Bell (Emily). George Smith was extremely surprised to find two gawky, ill-dressed country girls paralysed with fear, who, to identify themselves, held out the letters addressed to ''Messrs. Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell''. Taken by such surprise, he introduced them to his mother with all the dignity their talent merited, and invited them to the opera for a performance of Rossini's ''Barber of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...
''.
''Wuthering Heights''
Emily Brontë's ''Wuthering Heights'' was published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonym Ellis Bell, by Thomas Cautley Newby, in two companion volumes to that of Anne's (Acton Bell), ''Agnes Grey
''Agnes Grey, A Novel'' is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as ...
.'' Controversial from the start of its release, its originality, its subject, narrative style and troubled action raised intrigue. Certain critics condemned it, but sales were nevertheless considerable for an unknown author of a novel that defied all conventions.
It is a work of black Romanticism, covering three generations isolated in the cold spring of the countryside with two opposing elements: the dignified manor of Thrushcross Grange and the rambling dilapidated pile of Wuthering Heights. The main characters, swept by tumults of the earth, the skies and the hearts, are strange and often possessed of unheard-of violence and deprivations. The story is told in a scholarly fashion, with two narrators, the traveller and tenant Lockwood, and the housekeeper/governess, Nelly Dean, with two sections in the first person, one direct, one cloaked, which overlap each other with digressions and sub-plots that form, from apparently scattered fragments, a coherently locked unit.
1848, Anne's ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall''
One year before her death in May 1849, Anne published a second novel. Far more ambitious than her previous novel, ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' was a great success and rapidly outsold Emily's ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
''. However, the critical reception was mixed — praise for the novel's "power" and "effect" and sharp criticism for being "coarse". Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
herself, Anne's sister, wrote to her publisher that it "hardly seems to me desirable to choice of subject in that work is a mistake." After Anne's death, Charlotte prevented the novel's republication and thus condemned her sister to temporary oblivion.
The master theme is the alcoholism of a man who causes the downfall of his family. Helen Graham, the central character, gets married for love to Arthur Huntingdon, whom she soon discovers to be lecherous, violent, and alcoholic. She is forced to break with the conventions that would keep her in the family home that has become hell, and to leave with her child to seek secret refuge in the old house of Wildfell Hall. When the alcohol causes her husband's ultimate decline, she returns to care for him in total abnegation until his death.
Today, ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' is considered by most of the critics to be one of the first sustained feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
novels.
Identities revealed
In 1850, a little over a year after the deaths of Emily and Anne, Charlotte wrote a preface for the re-print of the combined edition of ''Wuthering Heights'' and ''Agnes Grey'', in which she publicly revealed the real identities of all three sisters.
Charlotte Brontë
Denunciation of boarding schools (''Jane Eyre'')
Conditions at the school at Cowan Bridge, where Maria and Elizabeth may have contracted the tuberculosis from which they died, were probably no worse than those at many other schools of the time. (For example, several decades before the Brontë sisters' experience at Cowan Bridge, Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
and her sister Cassandra contracted typhus at a similar boarding school, and Jane nearly died. The Austen sisters' education, like that of the Brontë sisters, was continued at home.) Nevertheless, Charlotte blamed Cowan Bridge for her sisters' deaths, especially its poor medical care – chiefly, repeated emetics and blood-lettings – and the negligence of the school's doctor – who was the director's brother-in-law. Charlotte's vivid memories of the privations at Cowan Bridge were poured into her depiction of Lowood School in ''Jane Eyre'': the scanty and often spoiled food, the lack of heating and adequate clothing, the periodic epidemics of illness such as "low fever" (probably typhus), the severity and arbitrariness of the punishments, and even the harshness of particular teachers (a Miss Andrews who taught at Cowan Bridge is thought to have been Charlotte's model for Miss Scatcherd in ''Jane Eyre''). Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
, a personal friend and the first biographer of Charlotte, confirmed that Cowan Bridge was Charlotte's model for Lowood and insisted that conditions there in Charlotte's day were egregious. More recent biographers have argued that the food, clothing, heating, medical care, and discipline at Cowan Bridge were not considered sub-standard for religious schools of the time, testiments of the era's complacency about these intolerable conditions. One scholar has commended Patrick Brontë for his perspicacity in removing all his daughters from the school, a few weeks before the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.
Literary encounters
Following the overwhelming success of ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', Charlotte was pressured by George Smith, her publisher, to travel to London to meet her public. Despite the extreme timidity that paralysed her among strangers and made her almost incapable of expressing herself, Charlotte consented to be lionised, and in London was introduced to other great writers of the era, including Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau (; 12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist, focusing on racism, race relations within much of her published material.Michael R. Hill (2002''Harriet Martineau: Th ...
and William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel '' Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and t ...
, both of whom befriended her. Charlotte especially admired Thackeray, whose portrait, given to her by Smith, still hangs in the dining room at Haworth parsonage.
On one occasion during a public gathering, Thackeray introduced Charlotte to his mother as ''Jane Eyre'' and when Charlotte called on him the next day, he received an extended dressing-down, in which Smith had to intervene.
During her trip to London in 1851 she visited the Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary The Crystal Palace, structure in which it was held), was an International Exhib ...
and The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibit ...
. In 1849 she published ''Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
'' and in 1853 '' Villette''.
Marriage and death
The Brontë sisters were highly amused by the behaviour of the curates they met. Arthur Bell Nicholls
Arthur Bell Nicholls (6 January 1819 – 2 December 1906) was the husband of the English novelist Charlotte Brontë. Between 1845 and 1861 Nicholls was one of Patrick Brontë's curates and was married to his eldest surviving child, Charlotte, f ...
(1818–1906) had been curate of Haworth for seven and a half years, when contrary to all expectations, and to the fury of Patrick Brontë (their father), he proposed to Charlotte. Although impressed by his dignity and deep voice, as well as by his near complete emotional collapse when she rejected him, she found him rigid, conventional, and rather narrow-minded "like all the curates" – as she wrote to Ellen Nussey. After she declined his proposal, Nicholls, pursued by the anger of Patrick Brontë, left his functions for several months. However, little by little her feelings evolved and after slowly convincing her father, she finally married Nicholls on 29 June 1854.
On return from their honeymoon in Ireland where she had been introduced to Mr. Nicholls' aunt and cousins, her life completely changed. She adopted her new duties as a wife, which took up most of her time. She wrote to her friends telling them that Nicholls was a good and attentive husband, but that she nevertheless felt a kind of holy terror at her new situation. In a letter to Ellen Nussey (Nell), in 1854 she wrote "Indeed-indeed-Nell-it is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife."
The following year she died aged 38. The cause of death given at the time was tuberculosis, but it may have been complicated with typhoid fever (the water at Haworth being likely contaminated due to poor sanitation and the vast cemetery that surrounded the church and the parsonage) and hyperemesis gravidarum from her pregnancy that was in its early stage.
The first biography of Charlotte was written by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell at the request of Patrick Brontë, and published in 1857, helping to create the myth of a family of condemned genius, living in a painful and romantic solitude. After having stayed at Haworth several times and having accommodated Charlotte in Plymouth Grove, Manchester, and having become her friend and confidant, Mrs Gaskell certainly had the advantage of knowing the family.
Novels
* ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' (1847)
* ''Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
'' (1849)
* '' Villette'' (1853)
* '' The Professor'' (1857)
Unfinished fragments
These are outlines or unedited roughcasts which with the exception of ''Emma'' have been recently published.
* ''Ashford'', written between 1840 and 1841, where certain characters from Angria
Angria or Angaria (german: Engern, ) is a historical region in the present-day German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his ''Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres'' denoted it as ...
are transported to Yorkshire and are included in a realistic plot.
* ''Willie Ellin'', started after ''Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
'' and '' Villette'', and on which Charlotte worked relatively little in May and July 1853, is a story in three poorly linked parts in which the plot at this stage remains rather vague.
* ''The Moores'' is an outline for two short chapters with two characters, the brothers Robert Moore, a dominator, and John Henry Moore, an intellectual fanatic.
* ''Emma'', already published in 1860 with an introduction from Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel '' Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and t ...
. This brilliant fragment would doubtlessly have become a novel of similar scope to her previous ones. It later inspired the novel ''A Little Princess'' by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
* ''The Green Dwarf'' published in 2003. This story was probably inspired by ''The Black Dwarf
''The Black Dwarf'' (1817–1824) was a satirical radical journal of early 19th century Britain. It was published by Thomas Jonathan Wooler, starting in January 1817 as an eight-page newspaper, then later becoming a 32-page pamphlet. It was pric ...
'' by Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
of whose novels Charlotte was a fan. The novel is a fictional history about a war that breaks out between Verdopolis (the capital of the confederation of ''Glass Town
The Glass Town is a paracosm created and written as a shared fantasy world by Charlotte Brontë, Branwell Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, siblings of the Brontë family. It was initiated by Charlotte and her brother Branwell; Emily and A ...
'') and Senegal
Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...
.
Branwell Brontë
Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817–1848) was considered by his father and sisters to be a genius, while the book by Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was Geor ...
(1986), ''The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë'', contains numerous references to his addiction to alcohol and laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
. He was an intelligent boy with many talents and interested in many subjects, especially literature. He was often the driving force in the Brontë siblings' construction of the imaginary worlds. He was artistic and was encouraged by his father to pursue this.
While trying to make a name as an artist, he left for London, but used up his father's allowance in a matter of days in cafés of ill-repute. His attempts to obtain low-paid work failed, and very quickly he foundered in alcohol and laudanum, unable to regain his stability.
Anne Brontë obtained employment for him in January 1843, but nearly three years later he was dismissed. In September 1848, after several years of decline, he died from tuberculosis. On his death, his father tearfully repeated, "My brilliant boy", while the clearheaded and totally loyal Emily wrote that his condition had been "hopeless".
Branwell is the author of ''Juvenilia'', which he wrote as a child with his sister Charlotte, ''Glass Town'', ''Angria'', poems, pieces of prose and verse under the pseudonym of Northangerland,[One of the key characters of '']Glass Town
The Glass Town is a paracosm created and written as a shared fantasy world by Charlotte Brontë, Branwell Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, siblings of the Brontë family. It was initiated by Charlotte and her brother Branwell; Emily and A ...
'', Alexander Rogue, created by Branwell, finally became Earl of Northangerland. such as "Real Rest", published by the ''Halifax Guardian'' (8 November 1846) from several articles accepted by local newspapers and from an unfinished novel probably from around 1845 entitled ''And the Weary are at Rest''.
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poet ...
(1818–1848) has been called the "Sphinx
A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon.
In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...
of Literature", writing without the slightest desire for fame and only for her own satisfaction. She was obsessively timid outside the family circle, to the point of turning her back on her partners in conversation without saying a word.
With a single novel, ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'' (1847), and poems with an elemental power, she reached the heights of literature. Though she was almost unknown during her life, posterity classes her as "top level" in the literary canon["The place of ''Wuthering Heights'' in the literary canon is assured" : see the synopsis of ''Wuthering Heights'' in the ''Critical commentary'' of Heather Glen, p. 351.] of English literature. Simone de Beauvoir
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...
, in ''The Second Sex
''The Second Sex'' (french: Le Deuxième Sexe, link=no) is a 1949 book by the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in which the author discusses the treatment of women in the present society as well as throughout all of history ...
'' (1949), chooses only Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poet ...
, Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
and ("sometimes") Mary Webb
Mary Gladys Webb (25 March 1881 – 8 October 1927) was an English Romance (literary fiction), romance novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and ...
, Colette
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her ...
and Mansfield
Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...
, as among those who have tried to approach nature "in its inhuman freedom".
Above all, Emily loved to wander about the wild landscape of the moors around Haworth. In September 1848 her health began to decline rapidly. Consumptive, she refused all treatment, with the exception of a visit from a London doctor, because although it was already too late, her relatives insisted. Despite popular belief, Emily did not die on the dining room sofa. There is no contemporary evidence for the story and Charlotte, in her letter to William Smith Williams, mentions Emily's dog Keeper lying at the side of her death bed. It is possible that she left an unfinished manuscript that Charlotte burned to avoid such controversy as followed the publication of ''Wuthering Heights''. Several documents exist that allude to the possibility, although no proof corroborating this suggestion has ever been found.
Emily Brontë's poems
Emily's poems were probably written to be inserted in the saga of ''Gondal'', several of whose characters she identified with right into adulthood. At the age of 28 she still acted out scenes from the little books with Anne while travelling on the train to York. "Remembrance" was one of the 21 of her poems that were chosen for 1846 joint publication with her siblings'.
Anne Brontë
Anne was not as celebrated as her other two sisters. Her second novel, ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'', was prevented from being republished after Anne's death by her sister Charlotte, who wrote to her publisher that "it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer." This prevention is considered to be the main reason for Anne's being less renowned than her sisters.
Anne's health began to decline rapidly, like that of her brother and sister some months earlier. On 5 April 1849, she wrote to Ellen Nussey asking her to accompany her to Scarborough on the east coast. Anne confides her thoughts to Ellen:
Anne hoped that the sea air would improve her health, as recommended by the doctor, and Charlotte agreed to go.
On the Sunday morning she felt weaker and asked if she could be taken back to Haworth. The doctor confirmed that she was near to death and Anne thanked him for his candour. "Take courage, take courage" she murmured to Charlotte. She died at 2 pm on Monday 28 May. She is buried in the cemetery of St Mary's of Scarborough. Her gravestone inscription carried an error in her age: she died at the age of 29 and not at 28. It was noticed by Charlotte during her only visit, and she had the intention of asking the mason to correct it. Ill health did not leave him time to effect the repair and the tombstone remained in the same state until it was replaced by the Brontë Society in April 2013.
Northern England at the time of the Brontës
In her 1857 biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', Mrs Gaskell begins with two explanatory and descriptive chapters. The first one covers the wild countryside of the West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
, the little village of Haworth, the parsonage and the church surrounded by its vast cemetery perched on the top of a hill. The second chapter presents an overview of the social, sanitary, and economic conditions of the region.
Social, sanitary, and economic conditions in Haworth
The death toll within the Brontë family was not unusual for area, and left little impression on the village population, who were confronted with death on a daily basis. When Patrick Brontë arrived, the parish was suffering from unemployment. The men sought work in the quarries and local handicrafts. The only businesses were the pharmacy, which supplied Branwell, and John Greenwood's stationery store where the Brontës were the best customers.
Haworth's population grew rapidly during the first half of the 19th century, from hardly 1,000 to 3,365 in 50 years. The village did not have a sewage system and the well water was contaminated by faecal matter and the decomposition of bodies in the cemetery on the hilltop. Life expectancy was less than 25 years and infant mortality was around 41% for children under six months of age.[''The Brontës of Haworth'', ''Brontë Parsonage Museum'', Haworth 1820–1861, p. 3.] Most of the population lived by working the poorly fertile land of the moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
and supplemented their incomes with work done at home, such as spinning and weaving wool from the sheep that were farmed on the moors. Conditions changed when the textile industry, already present since the end of the 17th century, grew with the mills being located on the banks of the River Worth
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
, whose waters turned the wheels. Consequently fewer people were needed to work them.
Food was scarce, often little more than porridge
Porridge is a food made by heating or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, (dried) fruit or syrup to make a sweet cereal, ...
, resulting in vitamin deficiencies. Public hygiene was non-existent and lavatories were basic. The facilities at the parsonage were no more than a plank across a hole in a hut at the rear, with a lower plank for the children. In her thirties, Charlotte was described as having a toothless jaw by such persons as Mrs Gaskell, who stated in a letter dated 25 August 1850 to Catherine Winkworth: "large mouth and many teeth gone". However, food was reasonably plentiful in the family. They ate from well filled plates of porridge in the morning and piles of potatoes were peeled each day in the kitchen while Tabby told stories about her country, or Emily revised her German grammar. Sometimes Mr Brontë would return home from his tours of the village with game donated by the parishioners.
Role of the women
According to Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
, poet laureate, in his response to Charlotte, ladies from a good background should be content with an education and a marriage embellished with some decorative talents. Mr Patrick Brontë had one of the characters in his ''The Maid of Kilarney -'' without knowing whether it reflected a widespread opinion supporting or condemning it - say, "The education of female ought, most assuredly, to be competent, in order that she might enjoy herself, and be a fit companion for man. But, believe me, lovely, delicate and sprightly woman, is not formed by nature, to pore over the musty pages of Grecian and Roman literature, or to plod through the windings of Mathematical Problems, nor has Providence assigned for her sphere of action, either the cabinet or the field. Her ''forte'' is softness, tenderness and grace." In any case, it seemed to contradict his attitude towards his daughters whom he encouraged, even if he was not completely aware of what they did with their time.
Sisters' place in literature
Due to their forced or voluntary isolation, the Brontë sisters constituted a separate literary group that neither had predecessors nor successors. There is not a 'Brontë' line such as exists among authors of realist and naturalist novels, or in poetry, the romantic, and the symbolic.
Their influence certainly existed, but it is difficult to define in its totality. Writers who followed them doubtlessly thought about them while they were creating their dark and tormented worlds such as Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
in ''Jude the Obscure'' or ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'', or George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wro ...
with ''Adam Bede'' and ''The Mill on the Floss''. There were also more conventional authors such as Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lite ...
, who in a letter from 1853 says of Charlotte that she only pretends to heartlessness: "nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage". In contrast, Mrs Humphry Ward
Mary Augusta Ward (''née'' Arnold; 11 June 1851 – 24 March 1920) was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward.
She worked to improve education for the poor and she became the founding President of the Women' ...
, author of ''Robert Elsmere'' and other morality novels, only finds the didactic among the works of Charlotte, while she appreciates the happy blend of romance and realism in the works of Emily. There is however nothing that could constitute a literary vein.
Pilgrimages to Haworth from 1860
By 1860 Charlotte had been dead for five years, and the only people living at the parsonage were Mr. Brontë, his son-in-law, Arthur Bell Nicholls
Arthur Bell Nicholls (6 January 1819 – 2 December 1906) was the husband of the English novelist Charlotte Brontë. Between 1845 and 1861 Nicholls was one of Patrick Brontë's curates and was married to his eldest surviving child, Charlotte, f ...
, and two servants. In 1857 Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte was published, and though at its first reading, Mr. Brontë approved of its commissioning, several months later he expressed doubts. The portrait of Nicholls, founded partly on the confidence of Ellen Nussey, seemed to him to be unjustified. Ellen Nussey, who hated Arthur, insists that his marital claims had perverted Charlotte's writing and she had to struggle against an interruption of her career. It is true that Arthur found Nussey to be too close to his wife, and he insisted that she should destroy her letters – although this never actually happened.
Mrs. Gaskell's book caused a sensation and was distributed nationwide. The polemic launched by Charlotte's father resulted in a squabble that only served to increase the family's fame.
During Charlotte's lifetime friends and sponsors visited the parsonage, including Sir James and Lady Kay Shuttleworth, Ellen Nussey
Ellen Nussey (20 April 1817 – 26 November 1897) was born in Birstall Smithies in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. She was a lifelong friend and correspondent of writer Charlotte Brontë and, through more than 500 letters received from ...
, Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
, John Store Smith
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
, a young writer from Manchester, Bessie Parkes
Elizabeth Rayner Belloc (; 16 June 1829 – 23 March 1925) was one of the most prominent English feminism, feminists and campaigners for women's rights in Victorian era, Victorian times and also a poet, essayist and journalist.
Early life
Bes ...
, who recounted her visit to Mrs. Gaskell, and Abraham Holroyd, poet, antiquarian, and historian. However, following the publication of the book and the pastor's public remonstrations, the parsonage became a place of pilgrimage for admirers wanting to see it with their own eyes. Charlotte's husband recalled that he had to protect his father-in-law, when on the short path to the church they had to push their way through the crowds of people wanting to reach out and touch the cape of the father of the Brontë girls. The hundreds of visitors became thousands, coming from all over Britain and even from across the Atlantic. Whenever he agreed to meet them, Patrick received them with utmost courtesy and recounted the story of his brilliant daughters, never omitting to express his displeasure at the opinions held about Charlotte's husband.
The flow of visitors has never abated. Indeed, the parsonage at Haworth received an estimated 88,000 visitors in 2017.
Brontë Society
The Brontë Parsonage Museum
The Brontë Parsonage Museum is a writer's house museum maintained by the Brontë Society in honour of the Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The museum is in the former Brontë family home, the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorks ...
is managed and maintained by the Brontë Society, which organises exhibitions and takes care of the cultural heritage represented by objects and documents that belonged to the family. The society has branches in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, the Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
n countries, South Africa, and the USA.
Haworth
In 1904, Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born i ...
visited Haworth and published an account in ''The Guardian'' on 21 December. She remarked on the symbiosis between the village and the Brontë sisters, and on the fact that utensils and clothes that would normally have disappeared before those who used them, have survived, enables one to better understand their singular presence. She wrote: "Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth; they fit like a snail to its shell".
Descendants
The line of Patrick Brontë died out with his children, but Patrick's brother had notable descendants, including James Brontë Gatenby, whose most important work was studying Golgi bodies
The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it packages proteins into membrane-bound vesicles in ...
in various animals, including humans, and Peter Gatenby, the medical director of the UN.
In popular culture
Books, comics and graphic novels
* In Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente (born May 5, 1979) is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Andre Norton, and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. Her short fiction has a ...
’s young-adult fiction novel ''The Glass Town Game'' (2017), "Glass Town turns into a Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been Adaptations of The Chron ...
-like world of its own, and the Brontës find themselves pulled through into their own creation".
*In the comic series ''Die
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life.
Die may also refer to:
Games
* Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers
Manufacturing
* Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
'' (2018) by writer Kieron Gillen
Kieron Michael Gillen (; born 30 September 1975) is a British comic book writer and former video game and music journalist. In comics, Gillen is known for ''Phonogram'' and ''The Wicked + The Divine'', both co-created with artist Jamie McKelvie ...
and artist Stephanie Hans, three of the locations on the icosahedron
In geometry, an icosahedron ( or ) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes and . The plural can be either "icosahedra" () or "icosahedrons".
There are infinitely many non- similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrica ...
shaped world are Gondal, Angria, and Glass Town
The Glass Town is a paracosm created and written as a shared fantasy world by Charlotte Brontë, Branwell Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, siblings of the Brontë family. It was initiated by Charlotte and her brother Branwell; Emily and A ...
based on the Brontë juvenilia. In issue #9, Charlotte is a narrative character and reveals the connection between the world of ''Die'', her siblings and their paracosm
A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world thought generally to originate in childhood. The creator of a paracosm has a complex and deeply felt relationship with this subjective universe, which may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters a ...
s. Charlotte is also featured on the cover of the issue.
*In the graphic novel ''Glass Town'' (2020) by Isabel Greenberg
Isabel Greenberg is a British graphic novelist and illustrator. Her first book, ''The Encyclopedia of Early Earth'', was published in 2013 by Jonathan Cape in the UK, Little Brown in the US and Random House Canada, Random House in Canada.
Career
...
, parts of the Brontë juvenilia are retold and intersected with the lives of four Brontë children — Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, as they explore the imaginary world they created. "Greenberg blurs fiction and memoir: characters walk between worlds and woo their creators. ..This is a tale, bookended by funerals, about the collision between dreamlike places of possibility and constrained 19th-century lives".
Cinema
* In the American short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
''Three Sisters of the Moors
''Three Sisters of the Moors'' is a 1944 American short historical film directed by John Larkin and starring Cedric Hardwicke, Molly Lamont and Lynne Roberts.Quinlan p.19 It portrays the life of the Brontë sisters. The film was released by 20 ...
'' (1944) by John Larkin, Molly Lamont
Molly Lamont (22 May 1910 – 7 July 2001) was a South African-British film actress.
Life and career
Lamont was born in Boksburg, Transvaal, South Africa. After winning a beauty contest in South Africa she was offered a contract by Britis ...
plays Charlotte Brontë, Lynne Roberts plays Emily Brontë, and Heather Angel plays Anne Brontë.
* In the American film ''Devotion
Devotion or Devotions may refer to:
Religion
* Faith, confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept
* Anglican devotions, private prayers and practices used by Anglican Christians
* Buddhist devotion, commitment to religious observance
* Cat ...
'' (1946) by Curtis Bernhardt
Curtis Bernhardt (15 April 1899 – 22 February 1981) was a Jewish film director born in Worms, Germany, under the name Kurt Bernhardt.
He trained as an actor in Germany, and performed on the stage, before starting as a film director in 1924, wi ...
, which constitutes a biography of the Brontë sisters, Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino (4 February 1918Recorded in ''Births Mar 1918'' Camberwell Vol. 1d, p. 1019 (Free BMD). Transcribed as "Lupine" in the official births index – 3 August 1995) was an English-American actress, singer, director, writer, and producer. T ...
plays Emily, Olivia de Havilland
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was a British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. ...
plays Charlotte, and Nancy Coleman
Nancy Coleman (December 30, 1912 – January 18, 2000) was an American film, stage, television and radio actress. After working on radio and appearing on the Broadway stage, Nancy Coleman moved to Hollywood to work for Warner Bros. studios.
Ea ...
plays Anne.
* In the French film '' Week-end'' (1967) by Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...
, Emily Brontë appears in a scene where one of the protagonists asks for geographical information.
* In the French film '' Les Sœurs Brontë'' (1979) by André Téchiné
André Téchiné (; born 13 March 1943) is a French screenwriter and film director. He has a long and distinguished career that places him among the most accomplished post- New Wave French film directors.
Téchiné belongs to a second generation ...
, Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Yasmina Adjani ; born 27 June 1955) is a French actress and singer of Algerian and German descent. She is the only performer in history to win five César Awards for acting; she won the Best Actress award for '' Possession'' (1981), '' ...
plays Emily, Marie-France Pisier
Marie-France Pisier (10 May 194424 April 2011) was a French actress, screenwriter, and director. She appeared in numerous films of the French New Wave and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Early life
Pisier was ...
plays Charlotte, Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert (; born 16 March 1953) is a French actress. Described as "one of the best actresses in the world", she is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality. She is the recipient of sev ...
plays Anne, Patrick Magee plays Patrick Brontë, and Pascal Greggory
Pascal Greggory (born 8 September 1954) is a French people, French actor.
Personal life
Greggory is openly gay. He had long-term relationships with Patrice Chéreau and François-Marie Banier.
Filmography
* ''Les Sœurs Brontë'' (1979) by Andr ...
plays Branwell Brontë.
* In the Canadian film ''The Carmilla Movie
''The Carmilla Movie'' is a 2017 Canadian comedy horror film directed by Spencer Maybee, based on the web series of the same name (2014–2016). Both the film and the web series were adapted from the 1872 gothic novella ''Carmilla'' by Joseph Sh ...
'' (2017) by Spencer Maybee, Grace Lynn Kung plays Charlotte and Cara Gee plays Emily.
* In the British/American film ''Emily (2022 film), Emily'' (2022) by Frances O'Connor, Emma Mackey plays Emily, Alexandra Dowling plays Charlotte, and Amelia Gething plays Anne.
Dance
* Several 20th-century choreographic works have been inspired by the lives and works of the Brontë sisters.
* Dancer Gillian Lynne presented a composition titled ''The Brontës'' (1995).
Music
* ''Wuthering Heights'' is presented as John Lennon's favourite book in ''The Sky is Everywhere,'' a young adult fiction novel by author Jandy Nelson.
* English singer-songwriter Kate Bush released a song titled "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights" in 1978 to critical success. Coincidentally, Bush shares the same birthday with Emily Brontë.
*''Glass Town'', a 2021 meta rock musical by Miriam Pultro, features the "Brontë siblings as band members: Anne as the modern, feminist neosoul star; Emily as the alt-rock prodigy; Branwell, singing the blues; and Charlotte, the passionate rocker frontwoman".
Objects in outer space
* 39427 Charlottebrontë, Charlottebrontë is the name of asteroid #39427, discovered at the Palomar Observatory, located on Palomar Mountain in southern California, on 25 September 1973. The asteroids #39428 and #39429 (both discovered on 29 September 1973, at Palomar Observatory) are named 39428 Emilybrontë, Emilybrontë and 39429 Annebrontë, Annebrontë respectively.
* The 60 km-diameter impact crater Brontë on the surface of the planet Mercury (planet), Mercury is named in honour of the Brontë family.
Opera
* ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'' has been the subject of at least three completed operas of the same name: Bernard Herrmann wrote Wuthering Heights (Herrmann), his version between 1943 and 1951, and Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights (Floyd), setting was premiered in 1958. Frédéric Chaslin also wrote an operatic version. Frederick Delius also started work on a ''Wuthering Heights'' opera but abandoned it early.
Sport
* In 2018, a new horse race at York Racecourse was named the Brontë Cup in honour of the family.
Stage productions
* The play ''Brontë (play), Brontë'' (2005), by Polly Teale, explores their lives as well as the characters they created.
* The musical ''Schwestern im Geiste'' (2014; ''Sisters in Spirit''), by Peter Lund, is about the Brontës.
Television
* In the ''Family Guy'' episode "New Kidney in Town", a cutaway gag shows Charlotte and Emily congratulating each other on their literary achievements, while Anne is shown as a crude simpleton (implying her literary contributions were negligible compared to her sisters).
* In the short-lived MTV animated series ''Clone High'', the Brontë sisters were recurring background characters. In the season finale, "Changes: The Big Prom: The Sex Romp: The Season Finale", they go out as Clone John F. Kennedy, JFK's prom dates, along with Catherine the Great and Joan of Arc. Later on, he states that he gave them away to The Three Stooges.
**The creators of ''Clone High'', Phil Lord and Christopher Miller previously made a failed pilot entitled “Super X-Treme Mega History Heroes” where it depicts a fictional toy line where the three sister action figures morph together into “Brontësaurus” à la other action figure toys such as Transformers and Power Rangers.
* In the episode "Educating Doug" of the American television series ''The King of Queens'', Doug and Carrie enrol in a course on classic literature to improve their level of sophistication. They are assigned the book ''Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' where Doug struggles to get past even the second page.
* In the episode of CBBC children's television show Horrible Histories (2015 TV series), ''Horrible Histories'' entitled "Staggering Storytellers", Charlotte (Jessica Ransom), Emily (Gemma Whelan), Anne (Natalie Walter) and Branwell (Thom Tuck) try to get their work published, forgetting all about the Brontë brother.
* In 2016 a BBC TV drama, ''To Walk Invisible'', was made about the initial success of their novels and the death of Branwell.
* In 2018, a TV sitcom series, ''Mom (TV series), Mom'', episode titled, "Charlotte Brontë and a Backbone", references being a college educated waitress who knows the difference between Charlotte and Emily.
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
Brontë Society
The Brontës
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bronte family
Brontë family,
English women poets
Victorian novelists
Victorian women writers
English people of Irish descent
People from Thornton and Allerton