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The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family
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About this ebook
A “brilliant” biography of the Brontë family, dispelling popular myths and revealing the true story of Emily, Anne, Charlotte, and their father (The Independent on Sunday).
The tragic story of the Brontë family has been told many times: the half-mad, repressive father; the drunken, drug-addicted brother; wildly romantic Emily; unrequited Anne; and “poor Charlotte.” But is any of it true? These caricatures of the popular imagination were created by amateur biographers like Elizabeth Gaskell who were more interested in lurid tales than genuine scholarship.
Juliet Barker’s landmark book is the first definitive history of the Brontës. It demolishes the myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling—but true. Based on firsthand research among all the Brontë manuscripts and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Brontë biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable.
The Brontës is a revolutionary picture of the world’s favorite literary family.
The tragic story of the Brontë family has been told many times: the half-mad, repressive father; the drunken, drug-addicted brother; wildly romantic Emily; unrequited Anne; and “poor Charlotte.” But is any of it true? These caricatures of the popular imagination were created by amateur biographers like Elizabeth Gaskell who were more interested in lurid tales than genuine scholarship.
Juliet Barker’s landmark book is the first definitive history of the Brontës. It demolishes the myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling—but true. Based on firsthand research among all the Brontë manuscripts and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Brontë biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable.
The Brontës is a revolutionary picture of the world’s favorite literary family.
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Author
Juliet Barker
Juliet Barker, author of Agincourt and other critically acclaimed works of history and biography, has a PhD in history from Oxford University and was for six years a curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth. She has been involved with all recent research into the Brontës and has made many major new finds that are revealed for the first time in this book.
Read more from Juliet Barker
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Reviews for The Brontës
Rating: 4.666666666666667 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
6 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At 830 pages (plus notes,) Juliet Barker's biography "The Brontes" is incredibly comprehensive -- perhaps a little too dense for a more casual reader interested in learning about the life of authors Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte. The book mostly focuses on Charlotte and her father Patrick, as Anne and Emily died young and had no friends to correspond with, so letters detailing their lives are pretty much non-existent. Charlotte's letters to her friend Ellen chronicled much of her life and Ellen turned those letters over to Charlotte's first biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, so there is a lot more source material there. It also contains a good deal of information about their brother Branwell, and his descent into alcoholism and depression, which eventually killed him.I thought the book bogged down a bit (considering Charlotte, who lived the longest of the sisters died at age 38... short lives all...) the quoting of the sister's childhood writing grew a bit tiresome for me. At the same time, Barker's book provides a great amount of insight into the sisters and what inspired them to write. The book also works hard to debunk some of the myths surrounding the sisters as well. Overall, an interesting and generally entertaining read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The story of the tragic Bronte family is well-known to everyone: we are all familiar with the half-mad, repressive patriarch, Patrick Bronte, the drunken, drug-addicted wastrel brother, Branwell, wildly romantic Emily, unrequited Anne and "poor Charlotte". Or are we? These stereotypes of the popular imagination are precisely that - imaginary - creations of amateur biographers like Elizabeth Gaskell who were primarily novelists and were attracted by the tale of an apparently doomed family of genius.The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors, the Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker demolishes the myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling - but true. Based on firsthand research among the Bronte manuscripts and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Bronte biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable. If I had to say one thing about this book and Ms. Barker's writing, it would be: 'less is more'. On the whole, I enjoyed reading this book as I am very interested in anything about the Brontes. However, I do have to say that I found Ms. Barker's writing to be incredibly detailed. So much so, that I had to give this book a B+!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Juliet Barker's The Brontës, published in 1994, is a humungo 830 pages, followed by 170 pages of notes. It is frequently, so it seems, referred to as the "definitive" Brontë biography, which is why I asked my friend The Blond Knitter to buy it for me when I won her blog contest. (I like to think of the writers of definitive biographies crying "Follow that!" as they write the final line. I would.)The Brontës totally lives up to its billing. Between the text and the notes (which I only dipped into), I really did feel that Barker had explored every possible source available to her. And yet not once, not once, I am not kidding you, was I bored. This could be due to my fascination with all things 19th-century-literature, but I think I'll put it down to good writing.And I discovered so many interesting things, especially about Patrick Brontë, the father, and his most famous daughter, Charlotte. The book begins with the transformation of Paddy Branty, a poor but highly intelligent farmer's son, to the gentleman who outlived his wife and all six of his children; in some ways, he is the star of the narrative just by reason of his longevity.Barker sets out to set the record straight about Patrick, who in Brontë legend is usually seen as mad and bad; in her book you get a portrait of a deeply devout clergyman (with a few foibles, such as a tendency to brag about himself and his children to the family he left behind in Ireland) who greatly loved his children, encouraged them to think and write, and was constantly worried about their ill health (which mostly seems to have been due to Haworth's generally unhealthy environment. The water supply was bad, and disease was rife in the village). Charlotte, on the other hand, comes across as less saintly than she usually does: she was rather on the bossy side, prone to outbursts and sulking, and decidedly manipulative.Barker quotes extensively from the Brontës' letters and early poetry and prose, showing every alteration and insertion so that I got a real sense of their writing process. Fascinating. Her notes are detailed and written in just as lively a fashion as the text.As the book advanced, it became increasingly hard to put down. A very nicely done treatment of a fascinating group of subjects. I'm actually racking my brains to think of a criticism, but the only one that comes to mind is that the collection of photos is a little idiosyncratic. But I've read enough about the issues surrounding the publication of photos in books to understand that this may have been a situation beyond the author's control.I'm happy. Except that I have to inform you, dear reader, that this is a hard book to obtain. I was lucky and located a good copy at a reasonable price, but I see that on the day of writing we're talking about "collectible" (i.e. exorbitant) prices. I hope you have better luck.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Currently up to chapter 3 in this highly entertaining monster of a biography about the United Kingdom's most famous literary family. Juliet Barker always enriches her narrative with great exotic tidbits. Up to now, we have met the accomplished if unusual parents and the countryside of Northern England, which I plan to visit in the near future. A great read!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a gigantic, dense, detailed, fascinating depiction of the family from Patrick in Ireland all the way to the death of Arthur Bell Nicholls. I've been boring my coworkers senseless the past couple weeks by telling them all about the lives of the Brontes. The book focuses most on Patrick, Charlotte, and Branwell, largely because not much is really known about Emily or Anne or the older girls or Mrs. Bronte. Nothing substantial, anyway, and corroborated by primary sources. Juliet Barker, to her credit, has done a LOT of research and tries hard to avoid speculation based on the fictional works.The Brontes does a lot to knock the Bronte myth on its behind. Gaskell's book, for example, left an impression of Charlotte as this saintly, patient, genius-martyr, who sacrificed her health and happiness for her father and her family. Barker corrects these impressions, and lets us see Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne as they really were, warts and all (except for Anne - she really does seem like the best of them). Gaskell herself does not come off too well in this book; the way she treated Nicholls and Patrick Bronte after Charlotte's death is horrifying and makes me lose a lot of respect for her.I can write pages and pages about The Brontes, but will just conclude by saying that this is one of the best written, best annotated, best researched, and most enjoyable biographies I've ever read, despite it's size. I didn't want it to end, and I didn't want 1848 to show up AT ALL. Despite the way that Charlotte's sainthood is stripped away, the real person she actually was is even more interesting and sympathetic. If I could build a time machine, I'd take myself and sufficient doses isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol back to Haworth Parsonage, c. 1848, and save Emily and Anne.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are two of my most favourite books, but I have to admit I knew little about their authors apart from the fact that they died tragically early and grew up in a little village in Yorkshire. Anxious to correct this, I ordered this book about a year ago but only got round to starting it three months ago.And what a three months it has been. Juliet Barker has earned my utmost respect for the clearly hard work she put in researching this book - combing through letters, trawling through public records and fact-checking EVERYTHING. The result isn't a dry account filled with dull facts and figures - it reads a little like a novel, but one completely grounded in truth and made lively thanks to the extensive use of extracts from the Brontës' writings and letters.The story begins with the birth of Patrick Brontë, the father of the famous writers, and ends with a summing up of the deaths of the major figures associated with the Brontë family and the lasting impact the writers had on their home village. It does not miss a single event out and you get a real sense of the kind of people Patrick, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were - even if hard information on the two youngest sisters is scant due to the lack of sources Barker was able to find on them.As a result, you realise that these were real people with real quirks, flaws and feelings. I found myself laughing and crying with them and getting rather angry with Mrs Gaskell for the way she distorted their story when she went about researching Charlotte's biography in completely the wrong way.Of course, there's plenty of revealing information about how the Brontë siblings' early writing informed their later, more famous work, as well as details on how they got published and the reviews they received - but Barker rightly makes a point of not making assumptions about their lives based on their fictional works, as many of the Brontës' more critical reviewers were in the habit of doing, and as many people still do today.I honestly can't recommend this book enough - I think it's being republished next year (in the UK at least) so it should hopefully be widely available again then, when it should definitely be picked up by anyone claiming to be a fan of the Brontës.