On this day, May 28th, in 1849 a young woman in her twenties was dying in a room in lodgings taken at Scarborough, with her sister Charlotte and friend Ellen looking hopelessly on. She died in obscurity, even though her…
Month: March 2017
The Award Winning Ponden Hall And The Brontës
England is lucky enough to have lots of guest houses and B&Bs that have a wealth of history to them, as well as a warm welcome for their visitors. One such place is of particular interest to Brontë lovers –…
William Shakespeare And The Brontës
Hot on the heels of Charlotte Brontë’s 200th birthday, April 23rd 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of the greatest playwright of all time – William Shakespeare. It’s a day when people across the world will celebrate his…
Elizabeth Gaskell – Biographer Of The Brontës
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Anne Brontë’s writings, and those of her sisters Emily and Charlotte Brontë as well. There are other writers who I love almost as much as the Brontë however, and foremost among…
Ellen Nussey And The Legacy Of The Brontës
In last week’s blog we looked at the life of Ellen Nussey and her friendship with Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Today we’ll examine her role in the preservation and dissemination of the Brontë story, and her life after the…
Ellen Nussey: Great Friend Of The Brontës
A lot of the information that we have on Anne Brontë and her sisters comes from the primary sources of their writing and from the many letters of Charlotte Brontë, but there is another woman we have to be extremely…
Anne Brontë And The Influence Of William Cowper
‘In looking over my sister Anne’s papers, I find mournful evidence that religious feeling had been to her but too much like what it was to Cowper’, these were the words of Charlotte Brontë after the death of her youngest…
Maria Brontë – Tragic And Genius Sister
The book reading world knows about the remarkable achievements of the three famous Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. There were five Brontë sisters in total however, and the oldest of them all, Maria, could possibly have become…
Jane Austen Verses The Brontë Sisters
In a week that saw the release of ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ it’s time to take a look not at the Bennets versus the undead, but at Jane Austen versus the Brontës. I once asked one of the hard…
Animals In The Novels Of Anne And Emily Brontë
Anne Brontë, like her sister Emily, was a great lover of nature and animals, and this was reflected in all three of their novels. It became almost a shorthand for virtue in a character, the villains mistreated animals whilst the…