The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef
Reef, C. (2012). The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Boston, MA. Clarion Books.
Summary: The Bronte Sisters chronicles the lives of Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte, as well as much of the life of their brother, Branwell Bronte. The four lived with their father, a minister named Patrick Branwell, and their aunt Elizabeth until she passed away, in Haworth, England. The girls all attended Roe Head School at one point or another, with Charlotte being the only one to finish. Charlotte taught for a time, and both she and her sister Anne were governesses for brief periods, finding the job to be a miserable one. Branwell, in the meantime, busied himself with drinking in taverns and taking mistresses while failing as a painter. Reef makes sure to touch on Charlotte’s time in Brussels and her relationship with Constatin Heger. From this point, Reef focuses primarily on Charlotte Bronte’s publication of Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s struggles to keep up with the success of her sisters. Branwell unfortunately succumbs to tuberculosis in 1848, a sickness that was aggravated by his alcoholism and opioid addiction. Several months later Emily dies as well, followed in the new year by their sister Anne. Charlotte continued on on her own, not passing until March 1855 at the young age of 38.
Thoughts: Oddly enough, our library has this book in the adult biography section, though it was very clearly written for a young adult audience. I thoroughly enjoyed Reef’s biography of the Bronte family, and appreciated that she did not flinch away from sharing some of the more unsavory facts about their lives, particularly when it came to Branwell. Charlotte’s relationship with Constatin Heger, the man she called “Monseiur,” was also fascinating. The lives of the sister’s is ultimately a very sad tale, but it’s comforting to know they found so much hope and love in one another, and in their village of Haworth. They did truly seem to be connected to the place, and it help such influence over them and their literature. As a reader you fell very sorry for Anne though, she did not enjoy near the fame or recognition her sisters did. It’s good to see her get her due here though, as Reef makes sure to give her just as much attention as the rest of her family.
From Publisher’s Weekly: Reef (Jane Austen: A Life Revealed) offers a detail-rich look at the lives of the Brontë sisters, whose works shocked, entertained, and provoked the minds of their Victorian audiences. This chronological account is three biographies rolled into one, reflecting the sisters’ intertwined lives. In a matter-of-fact yet conversational style, Reef anchors their stories in the historical context of industrial 19th-century England. Names and dates are many, but the narrative also quotes from the Brontës’ poems and letters, as well as those of others (a friend of their brother, Branwell, who died an alcoholic, reflected, “That Rector of Haworth little knew how to bring up and bring out his clever family…. So the girls worked their own way to fame and death, the boy to death only!”). Archival b&w images punctuate the 10 chapters, several of which are devoted to plot summaries of the sisters’ novels. Like the characters in their books, the Brontës were ahead of their time in resisting the constraints placed on women of their era. A comprehensive introduction to the authors behind some of the most-studied novels in English literature.
Publisher’s Weekly. (2012). The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Publisher’s Weekly. PWxyz, LLC. Retrieved July 19, 2017 from https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-547-57966-5
Potential Library Uses: I would like to use this book in a Women’s History Month program featuring famous female authors. All three sisters could be featured this way, and any of their works that the library owns would be featured alongside Reef’s biography. Emphasis would be on their lives as writers and the impact they have had on women writers today.
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