The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family by Juliet Barker

by Juliet Barker

Paperback

About the author

Juliet R. V. Barker (born 1958) is a British historian, specialising in the Middle Ages and literary biography. She is the author of a number of well-regarded works on the Brontës, William Wordsworth, and medieval tournaments. From 1983 to 1989 she was the curator and librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Barker was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she gained her doctorate in medieval history. In 1999 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Bradford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews

[Phil Atteberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book is Juliet Barker, a distinguished scholar. For some reason, that is not entered into the Goodreads database, and I don't know how to add it.

This may be the most impressive piece of academic scholarship I have ever read. Barker's premise is that the Bronte family was so unusual, so close knit, and so artistically reliant on one another that a biography of any one of them will inevitably lead to a skewed focus. Thus, this book is an exhaustive biography of the entire family. Having said that, not all the family members are explored in equal detail. Charlotte receives most attention, followed by Patrick (the father) and Branwell (the brother). Emily and Ann, the two younger sisters, are explored in less detail because there are fewer letters (and other primary sources) that pertain specifically to them, although they are by no means ignored.

Extensive quotations from letters, the Bronte juvenilia (extensive creative writing they did during their childhoods) and contemporary newspaper articles give one a sense of being right in the middle of their lives. Barker also discusses in thorough and interesting ways previous scholarship on the Brontes and how it has evolved over time. In doing so, Barker dispels a lot of Bronte myths, many of which were established by Elizabeth Gaskell's early biography of Charlotte, published in 1857, two years after her death. I should also mention that there are two editions of this book. The first edition was published in 1994, the second edition in 2012. The second edition is substantially revised, with expanded notes, and makes use of several new sources that have come to light since the publication of the first edition.

This book is not for the faint of heart. Only those with a serious interest in the Brontes or 19th century English literature will be interested. The text is 978 pages of small print. There are more than 150 pages of discursive notes (in even smaller print), many of which are well work reading because, among other things, Barker discusses the quality of various sources and why she chooses to use some and not others. It took me eight weeks of diligent reading (mostly under an Ott Light with a magnifying glass) to finish this book, but I loved it. I feel both respect and gratitude for people who can do such monumental research and distill it into captivatingly readable form.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I persevered thru all 979 pp (not counting the extensive number of notes at the end) of this marvelous biography which richly positions the novelists in the context of their family ties. Well worth the time and investment of energy for the reader who dares.