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This may be the reason his sisters decided to reveal their secret to Patrick earlier in the year – the news offered their father, who was growing ever more concerned about the fate of his family, a ray of hope. By September, he was bed-bound, and he died on the 24th of the month. In autumn 1845, Charlotte found some of Emily’s poems and read them, uninvited. Emily was enraged by the intrusion, but the incident gave head-strong Charlotte an idea – if the sisters could gather a collection of poems, they might be able to publish in secret and, if successful, they could become professional writers. They would never have to teach again, nor would they have to worry so much about Branwell’s ability to provide.
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The three sisters’ family came from humble beginnings in the small town of Haworth in Yorkshire. Their father was a parson of a local church whilst their mother passed away at an early age when the siblings were young girls. With a lack of parental guidance within the household it was up to the children themselves to create imaginary worlds which would shape their later writing styles. These imaginative worlds served as inspiration for some of the characters and settings we see in their novels. Emily Brontë drew inspiration for “Wuthering Heights” from various sources. Key among these was her own life experiences and the environment she grew up in.
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Set on the Yorkshire moors, the novel chronicles the tumultuous relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan brought to Wuthering Heights by Catherine’s father. “Wuthering Heights” continues to captivate readers with its deep psychological insight, intense emotions, and the haunting beauty of its setting. Emily Brontë, known for her fiercely independent spirit and her novel “Wuthering Heights,” is not known to have had any romantic relationships during her lifetime. She was deeply private and preferred the company of her family and the solitude of the Yorkshire moors to socializing. Emily also never married and lived at the family home in Haworth until her untimely death at the age of 30. There is no record or mention in biographical accounts of Emily having any romantic relationships, reaffirming her image as a solitary figure in literature.
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She took Emily along, but Emily soon became ill, an illness attributed to homesickness. Emily returned to Haworth and the youngest sister, Anne, took her place. The sisters turned domestic constraints into grist for brilliant books.
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Helen, a strong, independent woman, is actually escaping her alcoholic and abusive husband, a topic that was taboo and largely unexplored during the period. The novel is a critique of Victorian marital laws and the limited rights of women, and it stands as a daring depiction of a woman’s fight for independence and respect. Through her vivid storytelling and bold characterizations, Anne Brontë presents a poignant exploration of love, betrayal, and the strength of a woman’s spirit. Emily and Anne’s novels were both accepted by the same publisher, but not Charlotte’s. While waiting for publishers’ responses, Charlotte worked on Jane Eyre. Another publisher rejected The Professor, but saw enough potential in to ask “Currer Bell” for a longer, more developed work.
A once-weekly e-newsletter to inspire your desire to read and live a life filled with books. This iconic novel was actually penned by her elder sister, Charlotte Brontë. “Jane Eyre” is widely celebrated for its progressive exploration of female independence and identity, and it stands as one of the most significant works in the canon of English literature. Emily Brontë, on the other hand, is best known for her equally significant novel, “Wuthering Heights,” a passionate tale of love and revenge set against the bleak backdrop of the Yorkshire moors.
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The biography firmly established Charlotte as an important author to be remembered. The sisters used pseudonyms until 1848, as it was much easier to be published and have one's work taken seriously with a male name. The novel was billed as a fictional “autobiography.” Critics have concluded that Charlotte drew from her own experiences as a governess to write her main heroine, who works in Mr. Rochester's house.
To spare her father the anguish of yet another family funeral, Charlotte took the decision to bury her sister in Scarborough, where she was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, high above the town. In 1839, after one brief attempt as a teacher at Miss Patchett’s School at Law Hill, Halifax, where she was reported to have told her pupils she much preferred the school dog to any of them, Emily was also back at Haworth. Although often unhappy, Anne seems to have been the best able to cope with life as a governess. She eventually returned to the school as a teacher, taking first Emily then Anne as pupils.
And its portrayal of life as a governess also paints both a more ruthless and humorous picture than Jane Eyre. Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is a more exciting story, and sold better among the Victorian audience than her debut. The most successful of the sisters' books, Jane Eyre is a perennially popular piece of English fiction. While following the realistic narrator's trials as an orphan and a governess, Charlotte explores moralistic themes of love, independence and forgiveness, against the backdrop of the Moors. "The sisters were all very close indeed, because their interests were so similar and they were all so pathologically shy. Emily and Anne were almost like twins," says Juliet Barker, author of The Brontës. Their daily routine involved prayer, lessons, walks and imaginative play, in which they would escape into fantastical lands.
Although the firm declined to accept the novel, their response was sufficiently encouraging for Charlotte to send them her next work, Jane Eyre, begun in a dreary Manchester lodging whilst nursing her father back to health after a cataract operation. If Poems ranks amongst the great failures in publishing history, then Jane Eyre must count as one of the great successes. Charlotte’s first attempt at writing a novel for publication, The Professor, was rejected by several publishing houses, before it arrived at the offices of Smith, Elder & Co.
They pushed through their homesickness to make the most of the opportunity, only returning at the end of 1842 after Aunt Branwell died. She became forlorn and depressed, and also fell in love with her tutor. The painfully one-sided attachment would continue long after she left Brussels at the end of 1843.
Branwell Brontë died at age thirty-one in September 1848, the official cause of death listed as “chronic bronchitis-marasmus,” a form of tuberculosis (then called consumption). His condition was surely aggravated by alcoholism and addiction to laudanum and opium. In 1855, Charlotte died at the age of thirty-eight, just a month shy of her thirty-ninth birthday, of complications due to pregnancy. Soon, the reading public accepted that the Bells were indeed three separate people; gradually, the sisters’ true identities came to light. “It was said that this was an earlier and ruder attempt of the same pen which had produced ‘Jane Eyre,’” Charlotte wrote, “Unjust and grievous error! We laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now.” Newspaper coverage of the books seemed to reinforce the notion that Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were the same person.
However, since the mid-20th century, biographies, scholars, and readers have recognised Anne’s significance in challenging societal norms and feminist perspective. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tackles even more contentious subjects, including alcoholism, abusive relationships, and women’s rights. The protagonist, Helen Graham, defied societal norms by leaving her abusive husband and pursuing independence. This novel received mixed reactions due to its frank depiction of marital issues and female agency, but undoubtedly broke new ground, challenging prevailing social and legal structures. Returning briefly to Haworth, Anne and her sisters found solace in the companionship of William Weightman, their father’s handsome curate, until his untimely death from cholera. (Weightman’s influence inspired a poem, and a character in Anne’s novel Agnes Grey).
They wrote the stories in tiny script, in books small enough for the soldiers, and also provided newspapers and poetry for the world they apparently first called Glasstown. Brontë's first known story was written in March of 1829; she and Branwell wrote most of the initial stories. Brontë was the third of six siblings born in six years to the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria Branwell Brontë. She was born at the parsonage in Thornton, Yorkshire, where her father was serving.
Her second post, as governess to the Robinsons at Thorp Green Hall, near York, lasted five years, and her success enabled her to secure the post of tutor to the family’s only son for Branwell. In 1820 Patrick Brontė was appointed as incumbent of Haworth, and arrived in the township with his Cornish-born wife, Maria, and their six children. Gaskell’s book, which stands today as one of the best biographical studies of its kind, was nevertheless approached from a novelist’s perspective and it became a monument to what she perceived as Charlotte’s tragedy of noble self-sacrifice to duty.
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