The Four Brontes

Overview

Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family; retrieved 23 August 2023.
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (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. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights, Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature after their deaths. The first Brontë children to be born to rector Patrick Brontë and his wife Maria were Maria (1814–1825) and Elizabeth (1815–1825), who both died at young ages due to disease. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were then born within a period of approximately four years. These three sisters and their brother, Branwell (1817–1848), who had been born after Charlotte and before Emily, 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 in Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, has hundreds of thousands of visitors yearly.
Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet, and the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. Anne lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. Otherwise, she attended a boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837, and between 1839 and 1845 lived elsewhere working as a governess. In 1846 she published a book of poems with her sisters and later two novels, initially under the pen name Acton Bell. Her first novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847 at the same time as Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily. Anne’s second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848, often considered one of the first feminist novels. Anne died at 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis. After her death, her sister Charlotte edited Agnes Grey to fix issues with its first edition but prevented republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As a result, Anne is not as well-known as her sisters. Nonetheless, both of her novels are now considered classics of English literature.
Charlotte Brontë (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 in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing, and they first started publishing in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles.Charlotte Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her marriage in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive nausea and vomiting.
Emily Jane Brontë (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 poetry with her sisters Charlotte and Anne titled Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell with her own poems finding regard as poetic genius. Emily was the second-youngest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Patrick Branwell Brontë (26 June 1817 – 24 September 1848) was an English painter and writer. He was the only son of the Brontë family, and brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Brontë was rigorously tutored at home by his father and earned praise for his poetry and translations from the classics. However, he drifted between jobs, supporting himself by portrait-painting, and gave way to drug and alcohol addiction, apparently worsened by a failed relationship with a married woman. Brontë died at the age of 31. See: Wikipedia, Britannica, Study.com

Recommended Media

Web Resources: Print

Web Resources: Video

THE BRONTE SISTERS (Absolute History; 52 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c5SNVbuuNc THE BRONTE SISTERS: The Tragic Lives Of The Literary Icons: Walking Through History (Absolute History; 47 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW7MpqXnz2c THE BRONTE SISTERS: Women Ahead Of Their Time (Perspective; 46 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zYRMpLjiPU EMILY BRONTE (23 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJoOv49ZLlU BRANWELL BRONTE: The Shadow on the Wall (16 mins.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKMLPgvYkCY JANE EYRE (British Library): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiDxUF173TY

Three Novels: Video

JANE EYRE (1943 film; 1 hr, 36 mins.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ferjKtrr8 WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939 fil; 1 hr, 45 mins.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EAbYjIGNGw THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL (1996 BBC series; Amazon Prime): https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.d0b151d4-a636-fa73-a017-65292027a91d?autoplay=0&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb or THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL (1996 BBC series) Episode 1: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2anyfs Episode 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ao4ck Episode 3: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2aogv3

Seven Novels & Poetry: Print

The Professor (Charlotte): https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-analyses/the-professor-by-charlotte-bronte-a-19th-century-analysis/ Jane Eyre (Charlotte): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre WHY JANE EYRE STILL MATTERS: https://readgreatliterature.com/why-does-jane-eyre-still-matter/ IS JANE EYRE A YOUNG ADULT NOVEL? https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/apr/19/why-jane-eyre-is-a-ya-novel-charlotte-bronte Shirley (Charlotte): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel) Villette (Charlotte): https://www.thoughtco.com/villette-study-guide-4166436 Wuthering Heights (Emily): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS AN UNCOMFORTABLE BOOK: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/7/30/17629978/emily-bronte-200-birthday-wuthering-heights FAMOUS AUTHORS COMMENT ON WUTHERING HEIGHTS: https://lithub.com/wuthering-heights-is-a-virgins-story-and-other-opinions-of-brontes-classic/ FIVE EMILY BRONTE POEMS: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/classic-women-authors-poetry/no-coward-soul-is-mine-5-poems-by-emily-bronte/ THE COMPLETE POETRY OF EMILY BRONTE: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Poems_of_Emily_Bront%C3%AB A DOZEN EMILY BRONTE POEMS: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/poetry.html Agnes Grey (Anne): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Grey The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenant_of_Wildfell_Hall THE BRONTE SISTERS AS FEMINISTS: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/20/15128698/bronte-sisters-charlotte-emily-anne-branwell-to-walk-invisible-moors
Branwell Charlotte Anne Emily

Art Work

Imaginary Worlds

Glass Town, their original fictional land, was invented by the four together, though Branwell and Charlotte Brontë were the dominant players. After 1831, Charlotte and Branwell branched out into Angria, an extension of Glass Town, while Emily and Anne invented their own private world of Gondal. TALES OF GLASSTOWN: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Glass-Town-Angria-Gondal/dp/0192827634/ref=sr_1_1? GONDAL’S QUEEN: https://www.amazon.com/Gondals-Queen-Emily-Jane-Bront%C3%AB/dp/0292727119/ref=sr_1_2?
Charlotte
Agnes
Emily
Branwell

Poetry