Emily Brontë
Encyclopedia
Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights
, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne
and her brother Branwell
. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Emily Brontë was born on 30 July 1818 in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire, to Maria Branwell
and Patrick Brontë
. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë
and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth
, where Emily's father was perpetual curate
, and it was in these surroundings that their literary gifts flourished.
, Elizabeth and Charlotte were sent to the Clergy Daughters' School
at Cowan Bridge, where they encountered abuse and privations later described by Charlotte in Jane Eyre
. Emily joined the school for a brief period. When a typhus
epidemic swept the school, Maria and Elizabeth caught it. Maria, who may actually have had tuberculosis
, was sent home, where she died. Emily was subsequently removed from the school along with Charlotte and Elizabeth. Elizabeth died soon after their return home.
The three remaining sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell
were thereafter educated at home by their father and aunt Elizabeth Branwell
, their mother's sister. In their leisure time the children created a number of paracosm
s, which were featured in stories they wrote and enacted
about the imaginary adventures of their toy soldiers along with the Duke of Wellington
and his sons, Charles
and Arthur Wellesley
. Little of Emily's work from this period survives, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood, Fannie Ratchford, 1941).
When Emily was 13, she and Anne withdrew from participation in the Angria story and began a new one about Gondal, a large island in the North Pacific. With the exception of Emily's Gondal poems and Anne's lists of Gondal's characters and place-names, their writings on Gondal were not preserved. Some "diary
papers" of Emily's have survived in which she describes current events in Gondal, some of which were written, others enacted with Anne. One dates from
1841, when Emily was twenty-three: another from 1845, when she was twenty-seven.
At seventeen, Emily attended the Roe Head girls' school, where Charlotte was a teacher, but managed to stay only three months before being overcome by extreme homesickness
. She returned home and Anne took her place. At this time, the girls' objective was to obtain sufficient education to open a small school of their own.
beginning in September 1838, when she was twenty. Her health broke under the stress of the 17-hour work day and she returned home in April 1839. Thereafter she became the stay-at-home daughter, doing most of the cooking and cleaning and teaching Sunday school. She taught herself German out of books and practised piano.
In 1842, Emily accompanied Charlotte to Brussels
, Belgium, where they attended a girls' academy run by Constantin Heger
. They planned to perfect their French and German in anticipation of opening their school. Nine of Emily's French essays survive from this period. The sisters returned home upon the death of their aunt. They did try to open a school at their home, but were unable to attract students to the remote area.
In 1844, Emily began going through all the poems she had written, recopying them neatly into two notebooks. One was labelled "Gondal Poems"; the other was unlabelled. Scholars such as Fannie Ratchford and Derek Roper have attempted to piece together a Gondal storyline and chronology from these poems.
In the fall of 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted that the poems be published. Emily, furious at the invasion of her privacy, at first refused, but relented when Anne brought out her own manuscripts and revealed she had been writing poems in secret as well.
In 1846, the sisters' poems were published in one volume as Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
. The Brontë sisters had adopted pseudonyms for publication: Charlotte was Currer Bell, Emily was Ellis Bell and Anne was Acton Bell. Charlotte wrote in the
"Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell" that their "ambiguous choice" was "dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because... we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice[.]" Charlotte contributed 20 poems, and Emily and Anne each contributed 21. Although the sisters were told several months after publication that only two copies had sold, they were not discouraged. The Athenaeum reviewer praised Ellis Bell's work for its music and power, and the Critic reviewer recognized "the presence of more genius than it was supposed this utilitarian age had devoted to the loftier exercises of the intellect."
, as two volumes of a three-volume set (the last volume being Agnes Grey
by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics.
Although it received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. In 1850, Charlotte edited and published Wuthering Heights as a stand-alone novel and under Emily's real name. Although a letter from her publisher indicates that Emily was finalizing a second novel, the manuscript has never been found.
and All Angels family vault, Haworth, West Yorkshire.
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne
Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.The daughter of a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England, Anne Brontë lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. For a couple of years she went to a...
and her brother Branwell
Branwell Brontë
Patrick Branwell Brontë was a painter and poet, the only son of the Brontë family, and the brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.-Youth:...
. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Biography
Maria Branwell
Maria Branwell was the mother of English writers Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë and Charlotte Brontë, and their brother, the poet and painter Branwell Brontë.-Early life:...
and Patrick Brontë
Patrick Brontë
The Reverend Patrick Brontë was an Irish Anglican curate and writer, who spent most of his adult life in England and was the father of the writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, and of Branwell Brontë, his only son....
. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth
Haworth
Haworth is a rural village in the City of Bradford metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is located amongst the Pennines, southwest of Keighley and west of Bradford. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope...
, where Emily's father was perpetual curate
Vicar
In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...
, and it was in these surroundings that their literary gifts flourished.
Early life and education
After the death of their mother in 1821, when Emily was three years old, the older sisters MariaMaria Brontë
Maria Brontë was the eldest daughter of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell, a part of the Brontë family, and the older sister of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. She was born in Hartshead, Yorkshire.- Early life and education :...
, Elizabeth and Charlotte were sent to the Clergy Daughters' School
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 attended by the Brontë sisters. Two of the sisters,...
at Cowan Bridge, where they encountered abuse and privations later described by Charlotte in Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
. Emily joined the school for a brief period. When a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic swept the school, Maria and Elizabeth caught it. Maria, who may actually have had tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, was sent home, where she died. Emily was subsequently removed from the school along with Charlotte and Elizabeth. Elizabeth died soon after their return home.
The three remaining sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell
Branwell Brontë
Patrick Branwell Brontë was a painter and poet, the only son of the Brontë family, and the brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.-Youth:...
were thereafter educated at home by their father and aunt Elizabeth Branwell
Elizabeth Branwell
Elizabeth Branwell was the aunt of the literary siblings Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë...
, their mother's sister. In their leisure time the children created a number of paracosm
Paracosm
A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Often having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.The...
s, which were featured in stories they wrote and enacted
Storytelling game
A storytelling game is a game where two or more persons collaborate on telling a spontaneous story. Usually, each player takes care of one or more characters in the developing story...
about the imaginary adventures of their toy soldiers along with the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
and his sons, Charles
Lord Charles Wellesley
Major-General Lord Charles Wellesley was a British politician, soldier and courtier. He was the second son of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and Catherine Pakenham. He married Augusta Pierrepont, daughter of Henry Pierrepont, on 9 July 1844...
and Arthur Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, 5th Duke of Wellington
Arthur Charles Wellesley, 5th Duke of Wellington was the son of Arthur Charles Wellesley, 4th Duke of Wellington, and Kathleen Bulkeley Williams....
. Little of Emily's work from this period survives, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood, Fannie Ratchford, 1941).
When Emily was 13, she and Anne withdrew from participation in the Angria story and began a new one about Gondal, a large island in the North Pacific. With the exception of Emily's Gondal poems and Anne's lists of Gondal's characters and place-names, their writings on Gondal were not preserved. Some "diary
papers" of Emily's have survived in which she describes current events in Gondal, some of which were written, others enacted with Anne. One dates from
1841, when Emily was twenty-three: another from 1845, when she was twenty-seven.
At seventeen, Emily attended the Roe Head girls' school, where Charlotte was a teacher, but managed to stay only three months before being overcome by extreme homesickness
Homesickness
Homesickness is the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from the specific home environment or attachment objects....
. She returned home and Anne took her place. At this time, the girls' objective was to obtain sufficient education to open a small school of their own.
Adulthood
Emily became a teacher at Law Hill School in HalifaxHalifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
beginning in September 1838, when she was twenty. Her health broke under the stress of the 17-hour work day and she returned home in April 1839. Thereafter she became the stay-at-home daughter, doing most of the cooking and cleaning and teaching Sunday school. She taught herself German out of books and practised piano.
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium, where they attended a girls' academy run by Constantin Heger
Constantin Heger
Constantin Georges Romain Héger was a Belgian teacher of the Victorian era. He is best remembered today for his association with Emily and Charlotte Brontë during the 1840s.-Early life:...
. They planned to perfect their French and German in anticipation of opening their school. Nine of Emily's French essays survive from this period. The sisters returned home upon the death of their aunt. They did try to open a school at their home, but were unable to attract students to the remote area.
In 1844, Emily began going through all the poems she had written, recopying them neatly into two notebooks. One was labelled "Gondal Poems"; the other was unlabelled. Scholars such as Fannie Ratchford and Derek Roper have attempted to piece together a Gondal storyline and chronology from these poems.
In the fall of 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted that the poems be published. Emily, furious at the invasion of her privacy, at first refused, but relented when Anne brought out her own manuscripts and revealed she had been writing poems in secret as well.
In 1846, the sisters' poems were published in one volume as Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell was a volume of poetry published jointly by the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne in 1846 , and their first work to ever go in print. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first names...
. The Brontë sisters had adopted pseudonyms for publication: Charlotte was Currer Bell, Emily was Ellis Bell and Anne was Acton Bell. Charlotte wrote in the
"Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell" that their "ambiguous choice" was "dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because... we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice[.]" Charlotte contributed 20 poems, and Emily and Anne each contributed 21. Although the sisters were told several months after publication that only two copies had sold, they were not discouraged. The Athenaeum reviewer praised Ellis Bell's work for its music and power, and the Critic reviewer recognized "the presence of more genius than it was supposed this utilitarian age had devoted to the loftier exercises of the intellect."
Wuthering Heights
In 1847, Emily published her novel, Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
, as two volumes of a three-volume set (the last volume being Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë, first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works in several bourgeois families. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the...
by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics.
Although it received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. In 1850, Charlotte edited and published Wuthering Heights as a stand-alone novel and under Emily's real name. Although a letter from her publisher indicates that Emily was finalizing a second novel, the manuscript has never been found.
Death
Emily's health, like her sisters', had been weakened by unsanitary conditions at home , the source of water being contaminated by runoff from the church's graveyard. She became sick during her brother's funeral in September 1848. Though her condition worsened steadily, she rejected medical help and all proffered remedies, saying that she would have "no poisoning doctor" near her. She eventually died of tuberculosis, on 19 December 1848 at about two in the afternoon. She was interred in the Church of St. MichaelMichael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
and All Angels family vault, Haworth, West Yorkshire.
See also
- Walterclough HallWalterclough HallWalterclough Hall, sometimes known as Water Clough Hall or Upper Walterclough, lies in the Walterclough Valley southeast of Halifax and northeast of the village of Southowram in the West Riding of Yorkshire, alongside the Red Beck.-Origins:...
- A Death-Scene – Poem published in 1846
- Brontë family
Further reading
- Emily Brontë, Charles SimpsonCharles SimpsonCharles Simpson may refer to:*Charles Torrey Simpson , American biologist*Charles Ralph Simpson III , United States federal judge*Charlie Simpson , English popstar*Charlie Simpson , English soccer player...
- In the Footsteps of the Brontës, Ellis Chadwick
- The Oxford Reader's Companion to the Brontës, Christine Alexander & Margaret SmithMargaret SmithMargaret Smith may refer to:* Margaret Smith Court, known as Margaret Court , Australian tennis player* Margaret Chase Smith , United States Senator from Maine...
- Literature and Evil, Georges BatailleGeorges BatailleGeorges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
- The Brontë Myth, Lucasta MillerLucasta MillerLucasta Frances Elizabeth Miller is an English writer and literary journalist.-Education:Miller was educated at Westminster School and Lady Margaret Hall Oxford, receiving a congratulatory first in English in 1988. She was awarded a PhD at the University of East Anglia in 2007.-Career:Miller...
- Emily, Daniel Wynne
- Dark Quartet, Lynne Reid BanksLynne Reid BanksLynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults.She has written forty books, including the best-selling children's novel The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 10 million copies and has been successfully adapted to film. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, published...
- Emily Brontë, Winifred GerinWinifred GérinWinifred Eveleen Gérin, OBE was an English biographer born in Hamburg. She is best known as a biographer of the Brontë sisters and their brother Branwell, whose lives she researched extensively...
- A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë, Katherine FrankKatherine FrankKatherine Frank is a noted American author and biographer, now living in England. Her works include a highly-acclaimed biography of Lucie Duff Gordon, and the more controversial biography of Indira Gandhi.-External links:...
- Emily Brontë. Her Life and Work, Muriel SparkMuriel SparkDame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
and Derek Stanford - Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters, Denise GiardinaDenise GiardinaDenise Giardina is a novelist. Her book Storming Heaven was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. The Unquiet Earth received an American Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award...
- Charlotte and Emily: A Novel of the Brontës, Jude Morgan
External links
- Website of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth
- Some poems by Emily Brontë
- Emily Brontë's grave
- Memorial Page for Emily Brontë at Find-a-Grave
- Short biography and selected Poems
- Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights
- Map of Locations associated with Wuthering Heights and Emily Brontë
- Dutch website on the Brontës