The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Brontë Sisters

September 20, 2024

Literature

Nesha Ruther

Writer at Bond & Grace

Writing may be a solitary activity, but that doesn’t mean writers don’t need other writers. More often than not, a creative community can be the thing that turns a good writer great and helps them polish and eventually publish their work. This is why so many famous writers seek out and form creative communities, from the Lake Poets to the Lost Generation to the Harlem Renaissance. While it is not uncommon for writers to seek out this kind of literary companionship, it is less common to be born into one. Indeed, few writers can boast a built-in literary community as strong as that of the Brontës.

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Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë were not only some of the most talented writers of the nineteenth century and the authors of beloved novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but they were also sisters. Neither before nor since the Brontës has the literary world seen such a concentration of talent instilled into one single family.

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But before there were the Brontë girls, there was their father, Patrick. Patrick Brontë came from humble origins. He was born into a poor Irish farming family but worked his way to attending Cambridge. He believed strongly in the power of education to improve one’s station and imagined a bright future for all his children. He and his wife Maria moved to Yorkshire where Patrick pursued a career as a clergyman. They had six children: five girls (Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) and one son named Branwell. In 1821, Patrick got the opportunity to lead the larger parish of Haworth.

The Yorkshire Moors where the Brontës lived and which greatly influenced their work was a beautiful, striking, and harsh environment, yet it was also a growing industrial area. The sheep that populated the moors had made the region into a rapidly expanding textile hub, with 18 mills spanning the valley. With the rise of industry also came the spread of disease, and Haworth was one of the deadliest places to live in 19th-century England. 40% of children in Haworth did not live to adulthood and the average lifespan of the region was 25. The small cemetery behind Patrick’s church is believed to house 20,000-60,000 bodies and although the church averaged 1,000 baptisms a year, they reported zero population growth. In 1821, the Brontë’s mother Maria died of uterine cancer and four years later tuberculosis claimed the two oldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who were only ten and eleven.

After their mother’s death, their aunt Elizabeth came to care for the family, yet still, the remaining Brontë children spent much of their time alone. Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne were incredibly close. With their rich imaginations, they formed imaginary kingdoms like Angria, created by Charlotte and Branwell, and Gondal, created by Emily and Anne upon seceding from their older siblings’ kingdom. They were detailed in their fantasies, writing tiny magazines for the citizens of these fantastical kingdoms and developing characters such as Charlotte’s Duke of Zamorna. The landscape of the Yorkshire Moors also influenced them tremendously, in their childhood writing, we see the moors transposed onto the imaginary landscapes of these fantasy lands.

Patrick was also unconventional in his views toward the education of girls. He believed Charlotte, Emily, and Anne to be intellectual equals to their brother and allowed them to sit in on his lessons. This education empowered the girls, unlike many other women of the era. In 1838, Branwell, who was expected to support his sisters, was sent away to learn how to become a portrait painter. The girls all took jobs as teachers and governesses, the only positions available to unmarried middle-class women. Charlotte and Emily even took jobs in Brussels, where they hoped to improve their French.

It was in Brussels that Charlotte would fall deeply in love with the headmaster at her school, Constantin Hedger. Constantin, however, was married and made it very clear that he could not reciprocate Charlotte’s feelings. She was devastated. The girls returned to Yorkshire in 1842 upon hearing that their aunt Elizabeth had died. Sick with grief and heartbreak, Charlotte began writing and did not stop. The result was Jane Eyre and the iconic love interest Mr. Rochester, a combination of her beloved Constantin and her childhood creation the Duke of Zamorna.

Charlotte was not the only one writing, however, all four Brontë children were poets, and Branwell was even getting published in the local magazines. Not to be outdone by their brother, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne released a collection of poetry in 1846 under their pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. One year later, in October, Charlotte published Jane Eyre, paving the way for her sisters to also release novels.

Two months later, Emily published Wuthering Heights and Anne released Agnes Grey. Despite Anne being the oft-forgotten Brontë, Agnes Grey sold far better than Emily’s Wuthering Heights, which many considered too dark and strange.

While all three sisters drew from their experiences as governesses and the landscape of the moors, they did so to different ends. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman and classic love story, following Jane’s life until it culminates with her and Rochester’s marriage and the birth of their child. Agnes Grey is largely autobiographical, using Anne’s own life as a vehicle for discussing issues of oppression, abuse, and isolation. While the older and younger Brontës veered towards realism, Emily went the opposite direction with her overtly gothic, strange, and supernatural Wuthering Heights. All three stories have elements of tragedy and triumph, yet none of their stories could compare to the unhappy futures of the three brilliant writers.

While the girls were busy writing, Branwell had failed as a painter. He got a job managing the train schedules in a nearby town only to mismanage funds and lose his job there. It didn’t help that he had also begun an affair with his boss’ wife, who strung him along only to dump him. He turned to alcohol and possibly opiates and returned to Yorkshire a shell of the once-beloved brother. In September of 1848, Branwell died of tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, the rapidly decreasing family would not have long to grieve, three months later in December, Emily also died of tuberculosis at only 30 years old. That year in June, shortly before Branwell’s death, Anne published her mature and ambitious second novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Less than a year later in June 1849, she too would die of tuberculosis.

Charlotte was left alone with her father. She channeled her grief into her writing, publishing two more novels, Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853) as well as the posthumously published The Professor (1857). She married a fellow clergy member of her father’s, Nicholas Mills, and died (also of tuberculosis) in 1855 at the age of 38.

The Brontë sisters led short and tragic lives, but they left an indelible mark on classic literature. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are considered some of the best novels of the nineteenth century and revealed brilliant imaginations and skilled craftsmanship shared by all three sisters. Our literary canon would be far poorer were it not for their genius and creativity.

To learn more about the Brontës, read…

“The Brontës & Haworth: Introduction to the Novels”, The Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum.

“The Brontë Sisters (1818-1855)”, BBC History, 2014.

Robinson, Tony. “Brontë Sisters: The Tragic Lives Of The Literary Icons”, Walking Through History.