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| Patrick Bramwell painting of his sisters |
Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë
were three sisters from England who are now famous for their literary works.
Charlotte is perhaps the most famous, but this may only be because she lived
the longest. Each of the Brontë sisters was very talented in her own right. It
is perhaps not very surprising that each of them grew up to be very creative,
given the life that they lived both in their childhoods and in their brief
adulthood. Theirs were interesting lives indeed. The following are descriptions
of some of the more important events in these women’s lives, as well as some
random interesting facts regarding them.
Charlotte, Emily and Anne were
only three of Reverend Patrick Brontë and Mrs. Maria Brontë’s six children.
There were two other Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth. There was also a
brother named Patrick Branwell. He was known as Branwell.
Patrick was also very creative,
but did find himself in a bit of trouble in his life. However, he did draw a
self-portrait that is now relatively well known. He also painted a picture of
his three authoress sisters, which is a well-known work of art.
Mrs. Brontë died in 1820 of
tuberculosis. Charlotte was four at the time, Emily was two and Anne was one.
They stayed with their father, who was a very strict, frugal and somewhat odd
man. After a year of raising his six children by himself, he enlisted the aid
of a Miss Branwell. She played an integral part in the childrens’ education.
In 1824 Mr. Brontë sent Maria
and Elizabeth to a girl’s school named Cowan’s Bridge. They were followed
shortly after by Charlotte and Emily. Maria Brontë died at home that year,
after suffering from tuberculosis in the school. Maria’s death was almost
identical to that of Charlotte’s character Helen Burns in Jane Eyre. The ill
treatment Helen received at Lowood School and the treatment Maria received at
Cowan’s Bridge was sadly identical as well. Not long after, Elizabeth was sent
home and died of tuberculosis too. Their ages when they passed away were ten
and nine, respectively.
Both Emily and Anne were plagued
with homesickness when they were sent to join Charlotte with her teacher Ms.
Wooler (Charlotte and Emily had since left Cowan’s Bridge). Their homesickness
was so bad that it produced physical symptoms and the girls had to be sent
home. Whatever the cause of this melancholy, it subsided in time and both girls
were eventually able to hold jobs outside of their home without becoming ill.
Patrick Branwell Brontë served
as a tutor at a home in which Anne was a governess. He conducted a love affair
with the lady of the house and was eventually found out. The name of the woman
he loved? Mrs. Robinson. Following his dismissal, he became a drunken,
belligerent, opium addict, who mistreated his sisters. Anne and Emily did what
they could for him, but Charlotte disliked her destitute, shameful brother for
the rest of her life.
The Brontë sisters were first
published with their own funds. They published a collection of poetry that
included work from all three of them. The book was something of a failure.
Nonetheless, the names that they used on it would come to be some of the most
famous pseudonyms of all time. Ellis Bell was Emily Brontë. Currer Bell was
Charlotte Brontë and Acton Bell was Anne Brontë.
Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and
Anne’s “Agnes Grey” were the first of the Brontë novels to be accepted for
publication. Charlotte’s first novel “The Professor” was rejected. However,
“Jane Eyre” was accepted soon after. “Jane Eyre” was a popular novel as soon as
it was published, whereas, Emily and Anne’s novels saw most of their success
after their authors’ deaths.
Emily is often thought to have
been as talented, if not more talented than her more famous sister, Charlotte.
However, the only novel she ever wrote was “Wuthering Heights.” With a single
novel as good as that, it is hard not to try to imagine what this woman would
have produced, had she been given the chance. She died of tuberculosis at the
age of thirty. Patrick had died of the disease shortly before her and Anne died
of it soon after. Patrick was 31, at the time of his death and Anne was 29.
Charlotte Brontë did not
disclose the fact that Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell were, in fact, women, until
after all of her siblings had passed away. She wrote several more novels under
her pseudonym during her lifetime, but was at least recognized as the author
before her death.
Charlotte Brontë was the only
one of the Brontë sisters to marry. She did so in 1854. Just eight months later
she died of tuberculosis and complications from her first pregnancy. Her
husband was by her side.
These snippets of the sad lives
of the Brontë sisters give us the idea that their novels were something more
than fiction. They were reflections of the sad and sometimes lonely lives that
they led. They were poor working girls. They were well-educated girls, in both
academic subjects and in the difficulties of life. They were motherless and
without any real expectation in life. Nonetheless, they wrote novels that are
now considered classics, the modern sales of which would have made them
wealthier than they could possibly imagine in their lifetimes. It is doubtful
that any of them would have expected that.
Sources
The Brontë Sisters, retrieved
1/27/10, female-ancestors.com/daughters/Brontë.htm
The Brontë Family Chronology,
retrieved 1/27/10, Brontëfamily.org/chron.html
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