The complete canon of the Brontë sisters' classic novels, dramatised by bestselling author Rachel Joyce
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Orphan Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Rochester, but he is concealing a dark secret.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë On the bleak Yorkshire moors, Heathcliff and Cathy’s elemental passion runs wild – but their obsession has devastating consequences.
Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë Determined to make her way in the world, penniless young Agnes Grey becomes a governess.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë Gentleman farmer Gilbert Markham is powerfully drawn to Helen Graham, the mysterious resident of Wildfell Hall.
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë A poignant tale of friendship, romantic entanglements and turbulent times, set in Yorkshire in 1811.
Villette by Charlotte Brontë Leaving England to teach in Villette, Lucy Snowe experiences the pangs of unrequited love.
The Professor by Charlotte Brontë As a teacher at a boarding-school in Belgium, William Crimsworth encounters trouble and true love.
Adapted by Rachel Joyce, these radio dramas boast star casts including Ellie Kendrick, Amanda Hale, Tom Burke, Lesley Sharp, Paul Venables, Robert Lonsdale, Anna Maxwell Martin, Ben Batt and Chloe Pirrie.
Also included is a one-hour bonus programme featuring Rachel Joyce in conversation with producer Tracey Neale.
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.
I have finally finished this audiobook collection and can say wholeheartedly that I really enjoy this one! I also enjoyed that there was a little interview/discussion with two of the people responsible for creating these audio dramas and that was quite fun and interesting too. A little peek behind the scenes sort of thing, with facts and stories.
My ranking of the novels would now be: 1. Wuthering Heights 2. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 3. Jane Eyre 4. Shirley 5. Vilette 6. Agnes Grey 7. The Professor
I do want to read these in paper again in the future! I wonder if my ranking would change then again! We shall see ...
I’m just over 50% in, but I'm not willing to put myself through any more emotional turmoil that is the Bronte sisters’ writing, so I am dnfing this one for the present 😅
I loved listening to Jane Eyre, one of my favourite classics, and new to me, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 🥰 I look forward to (hopefully) returning to this one in the future! BBC radio dramas are amazing 😍
This has been the best impulse purchase I’ve made this year: a wonderful way to revisit my beloved Brontë sisters. Highly recommended to all Brontë aficionados
What a splendid audiobook! This was officially the best audiobook I have ever read; it resembled more of an auditory movie than anything else :) My favourite stories have to be Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey!
All in all, the Brontë sisters were truly incredible! I would also wholeheartedly thank all of the people who contributed towards the making of this audiobook, truly incredible!
Obviously when it comes to audio drama adaptations of the classics you can't do much better than the BBC, especially when it comes to casting. This is the entire Brontë canon, and a very quick and pleasurable way to remind yourself of the ones you've read and get to know the ones you haven't. They were adapted for audio drama by Rachel Joyce, who wrote Miss Benson's Beetle, one of my recent reads. I would give the production itself five stars. Obviously a dramatization has to leave out quite a lot, so if you're a purist go read the novels.
Weirdly, I knocked off a star for the novels themselves. Have I outlived my love of the Brontës? Like many readers I came to them as a young woman and thought that their portrayal of love was realistic and "true". Now, as an old bat, I see their fainting, brain-feverish heroines (hero in The Professor) and their daft love triangles and crushes as fairly juvenile stuff. But the Brontës were, of course, juvenile (Charlotte lived the longest, to the grand old age of 38, dying in pregnancy shortly after her marriage) and their literary talent lay in dramatizing their own inner lives.
Zipping through all four of Charlotte Brontë's novels had me smirking over the repetition of the theme of the poor, plain heroine/hero who is forced by economic circumstances to take a subordinate position but who wins out by having their Great Worth recognized by an authority figure . . . despite being despised by the more glamorous baddies, who always turn out to be morally deficient. Charlotte Brontë was of course poor and plain and forced to take a subordinate position (governess) until her Great Worth was recognized through the publication of Jane Eyre.
And thinking about it, and hesitating over giving this 5 stars after all because of the quality of the dramatization, I decided not to because the choice of focusing on the romantic storylines to the exclusion of all the side plotlines and descriptions is possibly what's making the Brontës seem juvenile to me for the first time. It's as if the stories have been pressed through a juicer and what has come out is sweet but just not as satisfying as the actual fruit. Recommended, with reservations.
This was a really engaging version (not the full version) of Wuthering Heights. The voice actors nailed the Yorkshire accent and all the sound effects were also pretty impressive. It certainly made driving around fun as I pictured myself winding my way through the moors while I listened to this. This would be the version I'd try to teach to struggling readers or students who have no interest in English. Since I've read WH before, this was a nice review. It is MUCH more pared-down than the full-length novel, though, and I'd still like to reread the full book.
I listened to this primarily to get a taste of each of the Bronte's major works (I have only read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights). Each adaptation was well done. After finishing this, I think I would like to read the Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey in their entirety. A very enjoyable way to pass the week between Christmas and New Year's!
This was a most excellent audiobook - a dramatised collection of the sisters' works. I can strongly recommend it. Well cast and the background music and sounds brought the stories to life. Jane Eyre - always worth rereading/hearing. Agnes Grey - I'd seen it as a BBC drama but not read it. Reminded me of the children I'd au paired for. Respectable young girl wants to earn money to help her family while her father is sick - only option was to become a governess. Despite warnings from her mother she goes ahead. She is neither one of the family nor one of the servants so is incredibly lonely (this comes across so strongly). Very vivid descriptions. Wuthering Heights - didn't bother. Too many doorway wailings. Have read it. Shirley - "why do you have a man's name?" (!!!) Lots of northern tension. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - very relevant today. Dark and tense. Lots of pre-social media/press speculation about new woman in the neighbourhood. Domestic emotional abuse and coercive control. Harrowing but worthwhile - I'd read the whole novel. Villette - a place and not a person. Who knew? (Obviously not me!). The Professor - didn't enjoy this so much but it did have passages about learning to teach which I could relate to!! Lots of intrigue which I didn't quite get the hang of. Another young woman making her way in the world, this time in Brussels. This kept me company on many walks and it was wonderful to have all the stories together for comparison and better understanding of the Brontes. Must read the full novels now (perhaps as audiobooks!)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
These are a full-cast BBC dramatisations of the Bronte sisters' stories. Dramatised by best-selling author Rachel Joyce. I thought they were well acted and you're able to follow along the storyline easily. They are abridged stories as these are dramas based on the stories, rather than a narration of the books. If you're not familiar with BBC dramas, these are plays professionally recorded and then broadcasted over the radio. Each story is approximately 2 hours, with the exception of Agnes Grey being just over an hour long.
The stories included are: 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Brontë 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë 'Agnes Grey' by Anne Brontë 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' by Anne Brontë 'Shirley' by Charlotte Brontë 'Villette' by Charlotte Brontë 'The Professor' by Charlotte Brontë
I wholeheartedly recommend this collection and will definitely listen to them again.
Our Book Club was reading Villette ( Charlotte Bronte)... I found this audio abridged version of a type of group of plays by Bronte sisters. Only had occasion to listen to Villette and The Professor ( another of Charlotte's). The acting and music and interactions amongst the players were excellent. Loved the story of The Professor, but found Villette rather confusing and an odd enough story, although Liked The strengths of the main protagonist. Perhaps as it was an abridged edition Or i Got distracted at times, i didn't "bridge" key sub-plots... Anyhow, I'll learn more perspectives at our next book club meeting and I would like to take this audio book out again to hear some of the other Bronte tales...
I really enjoyed these Bronte dramatisations. I had not read more Bronte than I had read, but couldn't bring myself to wade through all the others. These radio dramas were perfect to help me know the narratives. Brilliant casts helped me through quite a few car journeys. Even more interesting was the interview with Rachel Joyce (The Making of the Bronte BBC Dramas) at the end. Here they talk about the process of making and recording a dramatisation- the acting and movement involved and also the process of rewriting a book for a drama, what to cut and what to keep/ what works and what doesn't- especially important in well known and well loved Classics like the Bronte books.
I had read the more famous works of all the Bronte sisters years ago but the seven full-cast dramatizations in the Bronte BBC Radio Drama Collection are a great way to revisit those classics. Adapted by Rachel Joyce, the radio dramas bring to life Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, plus three other works by Charlotte Bronte (Shirley, Villette and The Professor) which I had never read before. Highly recommended, especially if you need a trip down memory lane. The audiobook also features a conversation with Joyce and the dilemma of adapting known works of art into a modern-day format.
Each and everyone of the Bronte sisters' books have been brought wonderfully to life in this BBC Radio Drama series - from the lesser known The Professor and Villette to the well known classics Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights , though some of them seemed to end rather abruptly and gave me the feeling that too much ended up on the editing room floor when trying to fill the typical BBC radio serialisation of 15-minute episodes! Otherwise, every one is deserving of a 5-star on its own and particularly memorable was Mr. Rochester!
Reading classics can be a chore for me, so this was the best way to digest all the Bronte works. I've only read Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I never finished Wuthering Heights (well, not in English, obvs I know what the story is about). You might recognise some of the actors voicing the characters.
I think Shirley and Villette are just as good as Jane Eyre and all the works have better love interest than Rochester. (Heathcliff doesn't count because Cathy is bad too and Isabella escapes from him.) I don't know why Jane Eyre became Charlotte's best work.
What an excellent overview of the Bronte sisters works. They did cut some things, obviously, but it felt so true to what I remembered from the books anyways.
"The Bronte BBC Radio Drama Collection" featuring stories from the Brontë sisters is an absolute delight, and it deserves five stars. This collection breathes new life into the timeless tales of the Brontës through gripping radio dramas. The performances are outstanding, making the characters and stories feel incredibly real and captivating. Whether you're a devoted Brontë fan or just diving into their literary world, this collection is a fantastic way to experience their genius. It's like having a front-row seat to the magic of the Brontës' storytelling. A five-star treat that's a must-listen for anyone who loves great stories and top-notch performances.