Six children -- five sisters and one brother. Not one of them lived to see 40. I knew the story, but still learned some tidbits. Loved the illustrations, but was sad they were all in black and white. My mom'favorite place in England was Haworth, and I have her photos in my memory still. She visited the church, the cemetery. She told me she'd seen a display of one of Charlotte's dresses and couldn't believe she was so tiny...this from a woman who just barely cleared five feet.Poor motherless children, raised by their aunt and their nursemaid. Beautiful girls and a mercurial boy. Two girls died in a horrible boarding school of abuse and neglect. Branwell and Emily and Charlotte and baby Anne were so talented, even if isolated in the little mill town. They told stories, they invented lands. They thrived, even tho their father pretty much ignored them.They all tried to make their ways in the world, the girls as governesses and Branwell as a tutor. They were not made for the world, and always returned home. Branwell was the most unstable of the group, Emily so shy. Anne saw the world in black and white...and then there was Charlotte.The story of the publication of JANE EYRE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and AGNES GREY, and the secret of the authors' gender is not new...but it was fun to see it play out. Reef uses a combination of scholarly research, literary analysis, quotes from the sisters, and dot-connections to tell the story.What I loved the most:Charlotte didn't much like Jane Austen,, saying, "the passions are unknown to her...her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands, and feet." Contrast that with an early review of JANE EYRE: "It is soul speaking to soul. It is an utterance from the depths of a struggling, suffering, much-enduring spirit."And then WUTHERING HEIGHTS -- not a personal favorite...in Charlotte's words, after Emily's death: "It is moorish and wild and knotty as a root of heath. Nor was it natural that it should be otherwise; the author being herself a native and nursling of the moors."And Anne -- my recent Bronte summer allowed me to discover her...this book tells the story of the inspiration for TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL...a huge surprise for me. Anne met a woman who lived the independent life Helen did in TENANT.But we know, all these successes would just lead to heartbreak. Branwell, never strong, sunk into alcohol and opium. His death was a blessing for the family who had to live with his ravings...then Emily, then Anne. Charlotte had to face all these losses: "I let Anne go to God, and felt He had a right to her. I could hardly let Emily go. I wanted to hold her back then, and I want her back now." Reef: "Devout Anne had seemed destined for Heaven, but Emily had been firmly of the earth."Charlotte guarded her sisters' legacies, and wrote in the preface of a reprint: "For strangers they were nothing, for sup0erficial observers less than nothing; but for those who had known them all their lives in the intimace of colse relationship, they were genuinely good and truly great."Charlotte snatched some fame and some happiness...the only Bronte child who survived to marry. But she, too, died before her 40th birthday.And Patrick Bronte, that cold, selfish man, was left alone. Outliving all his children. Excellent introduction to a talented family of writers. I've been meaning to reread the classics for some time and will begin with Jane Eyre. I also just ordered Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell (being a huge fan of the movie North & South with Richard Armitage), and did not know that she had also written a biography of Charlotte Bronte. I guess that will go on the list as well.The Bronte Sisters provides just enough information and detail to differentiate between the sisters and share how life's events shaped their work. Their train wreck of a brother and distant father are mentioned as well as the limited employment options allowed to women of the time. Photographs and drawings are scattered throughout the book and add to the general interest and information about the time period.Really fantastic and a fairly quick read!
What do You think about Bronte Sisters (2012)?
I ended up skimming this one, but still pretty interesting...
—Shummy
