Emily Bronte: A Life in 20 Poems

by Nick Holland

Emily Jane Brontë was born in July 1818; along with her sisters Charlotte and Anne, she is famed as a member of the greatest literary family of all time, and helped turn Haworth into a place of literary pilgrimage. Whilst Emily Brontë wrote only one novel, the mysterious and universally acclaimed Wuthering Heights, she is widely acknowledged as the best poet of the Brontë sisters – indeed as one of the greatest female poets of all time. Her poems offer insights to her relationships with her family, religion, nature, the world of work, and the shadowy and visionary powers that increasingly dominated her life.Taking twenty of her most revealing poems, Nick Holland creates a unifying impression of Emily Brontë, revealing how this terribly shy young woman could create such wild and powerful writing, and why she turned her back on the outside world for one that existed only in her own mind.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Poetry, Classics

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2018

About the author

Nick Holland was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire and went to University in Huddersfield and, later, San Diego.
Whilst living in the USA he developed a love of the books of Raymond Chandler and after returning to England decided to write a hard boiled thriller of his own, but set in Yorkshire. Thus 'The Girl On The Bus' was born. The Girl On The Bus has become a Kindle sensation, at point being the 5th most downloaded book in the United Kingdom and regularly featuring in the Amazon top 100 paid bestsellers!
A follow up to The Girl On The Bus will be released in Summer 2013.
Nick loves tortoises and was shocked to find only one children's novel about them: 'Esio Trot' by Roald Dahl. Taking matters into his own hands he wrote 'Tortoise Soup', a delightful story of friendship and bravery aimed at children aged 8-108. So now there are two quality children's books about tortoises.
Nick Holland has also written award winning poetry and his play 'Rudisha' was performed in London in 2012 to coincide with the Olympic games.
He is a also a ventriloquist, can you guess what his puppet is? That's right - it's a tortoise!

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely biography. Each chapter begins with one of Emily Bronte‘s poems, and he then uses each poem to delve into different aspects of her life. As a biography it was quite speculative but the author clearly has a great enthusiasm for all the Brontes. I thought it was very well done. The book itself was charmingly laid out, with the pages of the poems being quite decorative.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
Emily Brontë died at the age of thirty, leaving her exceptional novel, “Wuthering Heights”, and a collection of poems, that while lesser known than her novel, are considered by scholars to be among the very best of the Romantic era. Holland looks at Emily’s life through the lens of twenty of her poems, creating a unique, interesting and richly detailed biography. He is clearly a fan and prone to replace any criticism of Emily with his own more favorable interpretations. Still, I enjoyed this book immensely and consider it to be a perfect jumping off point for anyone interested in Emily’s life, her famous siblings, her poetry and her singularly brilliant mind.

[Rebecca Batley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a huge fan of the Brontes work and have read almost everything I can find on their lives and work. I loved Nick Holland’s previous book on Anne Bronte and have been looking forward to reading his thoughts on Emily, who out of the sisters has always been my favourite. I was not disappointed in fact I read this in 5 hours unable to put it down. It’s cleverly set out using Emily’s incredible poems (The Un-butchered by Charlotte original versions are used here) to illustrate different parts of her life. I felt like I was almost in the room with Emily for most of the book. The end of the book was swift and brutal, as was Emily’s, and after such a wonderful account of her life it was heartbreaking to read.
I appreciated the fact that most of the chapters dealt with Emily’s life rather than her ‘afterlife’ in popular culture. If I have any small criticism it’s that I would have liked the whole thing to be longer. Highly recommend

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

(FYI if I refer to Emily Bronte as Emily rather than Bronte, it's only to differentiate her from her sisters.)

I'll start with the negatives and end with the positives.

1) £300 is not equivalent to £233,000 today. It's more like £50,000, and this should have been obvious: if the three sisters suddenly came into £230K each, why would Anne remain working as a governess in the house she hated? Why would the sisters still be trying to open a school, where they charged such a high price for admittance which resulted in no one applying? And why would Charlotte return to Brussels to teach when it meant being far from the sisters she loved?

2) Branwell was not the inspiration for Heathcliff or Edgar. If he inspired any character, it was Hindley. It's so obvious that he couldn't have inspired Edgar that I think the author has been a bit tired and made a mistake, because he was talking about another character called Edgar in the paragraph above.

3) Wuthering Heights was talked about too briefly. I loved discovering how long it took Bronte to write and the influences/inspirations that sparked the novel, but there was no discussion about the themes, the sentences, the imagery etc.

4) There were some spurious claims about names. Why would Bronte memorialise her sister Elizabeth in Zillah? Zillah is a horrid character, and Nelly was short for Elizabeth, too. But it seems bad practice to theorise without any evidence whatsoever. I also didn't understand the excitement the author has about discovering a random woman who came to stay at the parsonage for two months who happened to be called Emmy. There is zero reason to think this is Emily's namesake, and we no literally nothing about Emmy Thomas other than her name and hometown. Stupid.

However! This was thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating. The author has a deep love and respect for Bronte, and the discussions about where an author gets their ideas from was brilliant. It seems that many people have wondered how Emily Bronte could write about romantic love when she never experienced it herself, as people wonder the same thing about Jane Austen, and Nick Holland clearly understands that this is simple-headed dumbassery. I loved these sections and Holland's obvious hero worship of Emily.

There was also so much information that was both joyful and heartbreaking to read about, and dispels a few myths, for example that Emily caught a cold at her brother's funeral and this was the cause of her death (it's likely Branwell, Emily, and Anne died of TB caught by either Charlotte or Anne during their visit to London.) I loved especially the essays Emily wrote in French (after only being in Brussels for 2-3 months, because she is a genius) and the dismissals of theories about Emily's love life, and the discussions about Emily's paganism. It was a fresh and level-headed take.

Despite the book's flaws, I do recommend it, especially if you're looking to learn about Emily and her sisters for the first time.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this delve into the life of Emily Bronte. Her poetry is phenomenal and I can tell why in her time she would have been misunderstood. It's lucky that we now see her work for the masterpiece it is. It was intriguing to see how her life and that of wuthering heights was shaped in her past. How her shyness overwhelmed her at times and how she felt comfortable alone and at home. It was interesting to here the views of Charlotte and how she admired her as a younger sister and how she relied on her.
This is a very emotional and in depth walk through her life from the happy child who became a happy if not subdued adult who only certain people only saw the true form of her. How a woman that struggled with confidence had a huge heart that took care of her family and stopped her showing how ill she had become. Her love made her hide but also brought her stories and poetry to life.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have given this book 5 stars brcause it was an absolute pleasure to read, and because it helped me understand the background to Emily' poems, contextualising them more fully. It certainly achieved what it set out to do. I woukd disagree with a couple of claims Nick makes, but this is purely a matter of differing opinions, something that did not distract from the enjoyment of the book and its achievement. Sad to have finished it!

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was arranged really nicely with a poem by emily bronte followed by a relevant section of non fiction writing loosely relating to that poems topic.

the non fiction sections were rich in detail and very interesting to read, but on occasion they felt a little heavy in fact for me.

[Cindy Satera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book !

I feel this writer really captured the incredible essence of Emily Bronte. Brilliantly done, so compelling!!!! This biography is fascinating.

[Jeannie Haas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly informative and full of splendor. Quite a gift of connecting with the lives of Brontë sisters. 10/10 would read again and highly recommend for any Brontë fans.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a lovely read. The interpretation of the poetry to periods in Emily’s life were much appreciated and enjoyed,

[Gail]

DNF at page 22. Not what I expected, was looking for poems by Emily Brontë but this is actually a biography with the poems used to open each chapter

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like his previous book on Anne this was a most excellent read, Nick Holland shows a true insight into the character of Emily Bronte.