Emily Jane Brontë (IPA: [ˈbɹɒntɪ];
July 30, 1818 – December 19,
1848) was a British novelist
and poet, now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature.
Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, being younger than
Charlotte and older than Anne. She published under
the masculine pen name Ellis Bell.
Biography
Emily was born in Thornton, near Bradford
in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell. 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 oddities flourished. In
childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother Patrick
Branwell Brontë created imaginary lands (Angria, Gondal, Gaaldine, Oceania), which were featured in stories they wrote.
Little of Emily's work from this period survived, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood,
Fannie Ratchford, 1941).
In 1842, Emily commenced work as a governess at Miss Patchett's Ladies Academy at Law Hill School, near Halifax, leaving after about six months due to homesickness. Later, with her sister Charlotte,
she attended a private school in Brussels. They later tried to open up a school at their home, but had no pupils.
It was the discovery of Emily's poetic talent by her family that led her and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, to publish a joint collection of their poetry
in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. To evade
contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first
names. All three retained the first letter of their first names: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Anne became Acton Bell, and Emily
became Ellis Bell.
In 1847, she published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, 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, 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.
Like her sisters, Emily's health had been weakened by the harsh local climate at home and at school. She caught a chill during
the funeral of her brother in September, and, having refused all medical help, died on December
19, 1848 of tuberculosis. She was interred in the
Church of St. Michael and All Angels
family capsule, Haworth, West Yorkshire,
England.
Popular culture
Emily Brontë is popularly regarded as the epitome of the talented writer who died with a short blaze of genius, more so than
either of her sisters, but allusions to her in popular works are infrequent.
In the 1967 film Week End by Jean-Luc
Godard, Emily Brontë appears in a scene in which one of the main characters asks her for directions.
Kate Bush wrote a song named for and based on Emily's novel.
Further reading
- Emily Brontë, Charles Simpson
- In the Footsteps of the Brontës, Ellis Chadwick
- The Oxford Reader's Companion to the Brontës, Christine Alexander & Margaret Smith
- Literature and Evil, Georges Bataille
- The Brontë Myth, Lucasta Miller
- Emily, Daniel Wynne.
See also
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
pms:Emily Brontë
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
