The sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne produced some of the most admired masterpieces of Victorian literature, in spite of their own tragic destinies. This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works of the Brontë Sisters, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 4) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to lives of the Brontë sisters and their works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * ALL 8 novels, with individual contents tables * Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Features rare poetry collections, including the complete poetical works of the Brontë Sisters * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry * Easily locate the poems you want to read * Includes Charlotte Brontë’s complete Juvenilia - spend hours exploring the author’s early works – many texts available in no other collection * Special bonus sections featuring the works of Patrick Brontë, the authors’ father, and Branwell Brontë, the brother of the famous sisters * Features four biographies - discover the Brontë’s literary life * UPDATED with new and scarce Juvenilia texts * UPDATED with rare poetry collections * UPDATED with more images and detailed introductions * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Charlotte Brontë’s Novels JANE EYRE SHIRLEY VILLETTE THE PROFESSOR EMMA Charlotte Brontë’s Juvenilia TALES OF ANGRIA MINA LAURY STANCLIFFE’S HOTEL THE STORY OF WILLIE ELLIN ALBION AND MARINA ANGRIA AND THE ANGRIANS TALES OF THE ISLANDERS THE GREEN DWARF ARTHURIANA OTHER JUVENILIA WORKS Emily Brontë’s Novel WUTHERING HEIGHTS Anne Brontë’s Novels AGNES GREY THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL The Poetry of the Brontë Sisters POEMS BY CURRER, ELLIS, AND ACTON BELL THE COMPLETE POEMS OF ANNE BRONTË THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY BRONTË The Poems of the Brontë Sisters LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER Patrick Brontë’s Works COTTAGE POEMS TWO SERMONS “AND THE WEARY ARE AT REST” Branwell Brontë’s Poetry LIST OF POEMS The Biographies THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË by Elizabeth Gaskell CHARLOTTE BRONTË by T. Wemyss Reid THE BRONTË FAMILY by Francis A. Leyland CHARLOTTE BRONTË AND HER CIRCLE by Clement King Shorter
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.
Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.
In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.
At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:
'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'
After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.
Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. Teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family -- partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.
Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855.