The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë: The Secrets of a Mysterious Family

by James H. Tully

Using fiction to explore further his investigation into the Brontës' lives, noted true-crime author James Tully creates a murder mystery darker than anything produced by their imaginations and reveals a hidden side to their literary myth. In 1845, Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls came to Haworth Parsonage to be the new curate. His arrival ignited the passions beneath the four Brontë siblings' isolated life on the Yorkshire moors. Within two years, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey were published. Two years after that, Branwell, Emily, and Anne were dead. By 1855, Charlotte was also dead, after barely a year of marriage to Nicholls. The causes of their demise have never been fully investigated but simply incorporated into the Brontë myth. Told through the parsonage maid, Martha Brown, The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë penetrates the claustrophobic world where the Brontë sisters wrote their stories of tumultuous passions and twisted love.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Historical, True Crime, British Literature

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was a little more convincing than the one about lewis carroll being jack the ripper (which was intended as purely nonfiction, not "i dont have enough facts to not get in trouble passing this off as scholarship so its a novel") but lets be honest, the lewis carroll was a lot more fun...this book is fine, it raises some interesting questions about the literary origins at least... as for the murrrrderrrrs... well that part is less convincing but at least it is never boring...

[Moira · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 'friend' sent me this....thing after I raved about how cracktastic it sounded. I am not sure I dare read it. I fear if I do, my head will melt like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It now has its very own shelf in my virtual collection here.


ETA: this book has been joined on its shelf by the GOODREADS I KEEL YOU ALL Kindlette. That should tell you what I think of both tomes.

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't read this book if you really like the Brontes. If you want to know about thier private lives, go pick up a biography. This is book is just insulting. If Charlotte Bronte were still alive, she would be sueing for defamnation.

[PJ Who Once Was Peejay · Rating 1 out of 5]

James Tully dedicates his book, "Para mi querida J...—who I met when she was but seventeen and have loved deeply for some fifty years." Despite the sentimentality of this dedication, the book itself is deeply misogynistic. All the women are silly, devious, or both; gossipy, snoopy, ridiculously docile, and melting in the snares of a handsome man to commit atrocities—or else shrewish enough to drive him to murder. And worse, they are plagiarists! Tully would have us believe the Brontë sisters stole the work of poor, doomed, haunted brother Branwell, passed it off as their own, and then blackened Branwell's sainted name. Tully's evidence for this? The testimony of a couple of Branwell's pub cronies many years after the fact and when all the Brontës were safely dead. It is typical of the kind of "evidence" Tully provides to support his wild conjectures throughout the book. Smarmy remarks like, "Now, I am a mere male, but..." also do not help Tully make his case.

All this would probably be acceptable—controversy is the meat of literature, after all—if the "novel" was at least well written. It is, in fact, woefully bad: the narrative is flat, repetitive, indirect, while the characterizations are paper thin or stereotyped. Worst of all, each chapter consists of a supposed deposition from Brontë maid Martha Brown followed by commentary from a present-day investigator. This structure seriously bogs down the flow of the story and repeats the material just reviewed by Martha to tedious effect. I suspect the information provided by the present-day investigator, an ill-defined solicitor character, is simply a dumping ground for the nonfiction book Tully wanted to write (by his own admission) and couldn't sell because the case he presented for the Brontë "crimes" was so meager, thereby making his wild conclusions laughable. Unfortunately, there is nothing laughable about this novel. It is so bad it doesn't even inspire true irony.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is my guilty little secret. I love it. On those bitter winter days when it is too dark and dreary to do anything else, I curl up in my favorite chair, wrapped in a snuggie and with a pot of tea on the table beside me, I let myself be drawn into this fictional tale...
There! I've admitted it and I'm still alive!

As a young girl I was fascinated by the Bronte family and their untimely deaths, could never figure out why 'Wuthering Heights' began the way it did (even as an 11 year old, I thought the narrative switch...unusual) and so when this book came out so many years ago, I immediately bought it and I have never regretted it!

I don't care that James Tully is the nemesis of Bronte fans all over the world, I don't even care that in the presence of said fans I must advert my eyes and tuck my head in shame....
I have read this book once a year since it was published and I will continue to do so for as long as I like!
Here's the thing...it's fictional! It's fun! It doesn't have calories!

And I'm giving it five stars because I enjoy it every time I read it....so there!

[Karschtl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein Buch über das Leben der Bronte-Geschwister.

Zusammenfassung des Inhaltes und der "Verbrechen":
Aufzeichnungen der Dienstmagd Martha werfen ein ganz neues Licht auf die überlieferte Geschichte, derzufolge die drei Schwestern innerhalb weniger Jahre alle an der Schwindsucht starben. Martha behauptet, dass sowohl die Schwestern als auch deren Bruder vergiftet worden seien. Und zwar von Arthur Bell Nicholls, der als Hilfspfarrer Pastor Bronte unterstützte. Angefangen hat es mit Branwell (dem Bruder), der aus dem Weg geschafft werden musste um die Affäre zwischen Arthur und Emily nicht zu verraten. Als letztere vom Mord erfuhr - und noch dazu glaubte schwanger zu sein - musste sie nur 3 Monate nach ihrem Bruder auch sterben. Als nächstes war Anne dran, der sich Emily vor ihrem Tod noch anvertrauen konnte. Auch sie wusste von der Vergiftung ihres Bruders und befürchtete, dass selbiges mit ihrer Schwester geschehen war. Anne aber wurde nicht von Arthur vergiftet sondern von ihrer eigenen Schwester Charlotte! Diese hat einige Jahre später Arthur geheiratet, wurde aber kurz darauf ebenfalls von ihm vergiftet da er sie endlich vom Hals haben wollte und eigentlich nur scharf auf ihr Geld war, das er schließlich auch bekam. Martha weiß um diese Dinge zum einen weil sie die ganze Zeit im Bronte-Haus gelebt hat, zum anderen weil sie selbst jahrelang eine Affäre mit Arthur hatte.

Ich wusste vorher nicht gerade viel von den Brontes, in welcher Reihenfolge und mit welchem Abstand sie gestorben sind. (Auch nicht, dass es zu den drei Schwestern noch einen Bruder gab). Somit blieb für mich die Spannung erhalten.
Die Erklärungen, die der Autor mittels den Erzählungen der Magd liefert, klingen sehr logisch und man kommt gar nicht umhin sich zu fragen, wie viel davon denn nun der Wahrheit entspricht. Die vielen Todesfälle in recht kurzer Zeit sind schon sehr auffällig. Sicher, man könnte auch an eine vererbte Krankheit denken. Aber Charlotte ging es ja die ganzen Jahre zwischen dem Tod ihrer Schwestern und ihrer Heirat recht gut. Und plötzlich wird sie krank...

Sicher ist jedenfalls, dass Martha später mit Arthur nach Irland ging und ihn dort immer wieder besuchte. Nachzulesen auch bei www.bronte.info. Wieso sollte er ein Dienstmädchen zu sich einladen, wenn da nicht mehr war?? Unlogisch war für mich die Entscheidung von Martha, nachdem sie von Irland nach Haworth zurück gekehrt war und dort eher unglücklich war und gar zu ihrer Schwester flüchtete - wieso sie dann beim nächsten Besuch in Irland nicht einfach dageblieben ist. Der Grund, dass sie Haworth vermisst, traf zu dem Zeitpunkt wohl nicht mehr zu.
Stutzig machte mich auch, dass Martha trotz der jahrelangen Affäre kein einziges Mal schwanger wurde. Sie schrieb ja, dass sie jede Möglichkeit zum Rendezvous nutzten, dh es waren reichlich Gelegenheiten vorhanden.

Ich fragte mich ebenfalls, wieso Emily nach anfänglicher Zurückhaltung - sie wurde streng gläubig erzogen - dann doch Sex vor der Ehe hatte, und nicht nur einmal.

Negativ anzumerken hätte ich nur eine Sache: die endlose Wiederholung des Faktes, dass Martha viel glücklicher war wenn Charlotte verreist war weil sie dann weniger zu tun hatte und sich mit Arthur treffen konnte nervt nach einer gewissen Zeit. Spätestens nach den ersten drei Malen hat der Leser das kapiert.

Nach dem Lesen hab ich im Internet weiter über die Brontes recherchiert. Da steht zB, dass die Ehe zwischen Charlotte und Arthur kurz aber sehr glücklich war. Was ich anzweifle, zumindest wenn die zitierten Briefe-Passagen an Ellen Nussey echt waren. Bei einem solchen Kontrollfreak von Mann kann das keine glückliche Ehe gewesen sein. Arme Charlotte, aber andererseits war sie ja auch kein Engel und ich weiß gar nicht ob ich ihre Bücher jetzt ohne dieses Wissen im Hinterkopf noch genießen kann.

Fazit: flott zu lesen, sehr spannend, informativ und nachvollziehbar. Für Bronte-Fans sicher ein Muss, auch wenn der Mythos vielleicht etwas zerstört wird. Mich hat es neugierig gemacht, doch die volle Wahrheit wird wohl niemand erfahren, da der Autor des Buches nun ebenfalls tot ist.

[Velvetink · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm fairly sure the Bronte estate abhor this book & say none of it is true.. That said it was interesting to read - I couldn't put it down. It gives pause to think about previous era's when many underhanded and heinous things were done that slipped by the law or were in fact legal.

[Ellen Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been fascinated by the Bronte family, and even as a young girl, found the close proximity of the adult childrens' deaths to be odd. Therefore, when I found a copy of "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte" in a mystery book store, I had to buy the book.

Sadly, the book is not terribly well-written; but, it's content is intriguing. The book was written by James Tully, a criminologist with a specialist knowledge of 19th century poisons, and published in 1999. Tully said that he, too, had been fascinated by the lives of the Brontës, but only had time to investigate their intriguing lives after he retired.

"I find it very coincidental that three women in their late 20s with very little formal education should each write a bestselling book in the same year that the handsome young curate arrives, and that within nine months all three are dead," Tully explains.

"The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte" also includes the story of the one Bronte son's death, as well as discussing the death of the adult Bronte sisters (two other daughters died at a young age). The supposition that Tully raises is formed from his investigation about potential illicit affairs and murder, along with well-documented drunkeness, religious hypocrisy, sexism,and more.

Here is a link to a newspaper article about the book: http://www.zine5.com/archive/book07.htm.

Despite "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte" not being not well-written, the book is easy to read and offers a fascinating alternative story to the lives of the adult Bronte sisters, their brother, and the other people in their lives.

[Esme · Rating 1 out of 5]

Possibly the stupidest book I've ever read. Clunky in style, misognistic...made me so angry I couldn't finish it, even for the pleasure of mocking the bad parts.

Basically sweet innocent girls can't write books without a man to help them. That man must have been the degenterate drunkard Branwell Bronte or the curate that everybody was having an affair with (?) Charlotte, being plain and grumpy, must have murdered everyone to cover the facts; because it's IMPOSSIBLE for several members of the same family to die of a highly infectious disease before antibiotics were discovered.

Will have any Bronte fan beating their head against a wall by chapter 2.

[Kylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have never been so torn as I was when reading this book. For years, Jane Eyre has been my life novel, I absolutely adore it! The characters were depicted phenomenally, the setting was intriguing, and the plot was surely heart-wrenching. But of course the greatest part of it all is the complex beauty of Jane's character! I would kill to be like Jane... And apparently so would Charlotte Bronte. This book was so intriguing and, although a work of fiction, encourages readers to take off their rose-colored glasses when reading a Bronte's work. Regardless of whether its content is factual or the working James Tully's imagination, this novel ignites in readers a desire to uncover the truth of the Bronte family. Right now this book and I have a love/hate relationship, but I would recommend it all the same. Jane Eyre

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK! I will never be able to view the the Brontes the same again. This book is twisted! Im glad a read it, but there is a whole lot of conjecture. It bothered me that Tully puts his hypothosis forward in a completely fictional narrative - even his facts are cloaked in the shroud of a fictional narrator. Tully does have some compelling questions about the odd behaviors of the Brontes and their untimely deaths. It reminds me of The Da Vinci Code in that I found myself wanting to hole up in a library to research what is indeed fact and what is fiction.

[Armin · Rating 3 out of 5]

69/100 Noch eine Geschichte einer Magd mit einer etwas ausgefeilteren Konzeption. Für Freunde der Intertextualität ist das Buch sicherlich ein gefundenes Fressen, Whodunnitfans, die erst auf der letzten Seite Gewissheit über den Täter haben wollen, bekommen sicherlich das große Kotzen bei dieser Mordserie im Pfarrhaus. Ausführliche Rezi später.

[Lynn Grundset Milner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a novel; however, I wish I hadn't read this book since Jane Eyre is one of my favorites. My opinion of Charlotte Bronte was lowered by the description of her in this book. Ignorance in this case would have been bliss.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brontë is one of my literary heroines. This book is cleverly written and deconstructs the mythology - or attempts to do so - I won't give spoilers, but if you've an open mind it's a fun read

[Mina S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ben gercek olduguna inandim.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a fan of the classics and I loved reading Jane Eyre. So when a friend lent this book to me, I was definitely intrigued. I have never read any true crime fiction, so this was a first.

The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte is a story within a story within a story, and each chapter begins with the testimony of the Bronte’s maid, Martha Brown, describing events from her perspective, before being deconstructed and added to by a fictitious historian. The story begins with the arrival of Reverend Arthur Bell to the parsonage, and the lives of the Brontes (and Martha) are never the same again. Drugs, poisoning, secrets and lies abound in this novel of passion, intrigue and homicide.

I wanted to like this novel, I really did. But it moved so slowly and included so much information that hindered the story’s progression that it became a chore to finish the novel. I think if the author had stuck to a fictitious aspect and not tried to rationalize every major plot point, it may have moved faster and kept my attention. Overall I would not recommend if you are a fan of the Brontes, but if you like biographical novels with a healthy dose of intrigue then this may interest you.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the fourth book I read while sheltering in place. This is an engrossing book, particularly for anyone who has some knowledge of the Brontes and their story. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. I wrote my graduate thesis on Villette, so I did a certain amount of biographical study of Charlotte Bronte and her family. This book bowled me over. Nothing alleged in this book occurred to me while I was doing my research, yet it is all completely and frighteningly plausible. I am unfamiliar with this author, beyond what I was able to learn through a quick internet search. He has clearly spent a long time speculating over the events at Haworth Parsonage. I recommend this book highly to anyone familiar with the Brontes and their lives. If you are just starting out, this is not the first book I would read. One caveat: if you hold the Brontes in lofty esteem, this book may forever change that opinion.

[Marsali Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great fun! It has a dual narrator - Martha Brown, servant at the Manse at Haworth, telling her story in a manuscript found by the second narrator, a lawyer, who investigates her story and points out the contradictions in the normal Bronte legend. Were Branwell, Emily, Anne and Charlotte really poisoned? The anomalies in the record are fascinating - for example, why didn't Patrick Bronte go to his daughter Charlotte's wedding? Why was Anne buried, at Scarborough, so quickly that her father couldn't attend her funeral? Was the only portrait that Charlotte's husband kept really Emily's?

A spoof book, of course, but It makes me want to read a recent, up-to-date biography of the family, to see how much could be true ...

[Courtney Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should have been more appropriately titled The Crimes of Arthur Nicholls, as he was the primary killer, Charlotte was an accomplice. Her name is more of an attention-grab seeing that she eventually succumbs to Nicholls' malice. The story is entertaining for the most part, but should be taken with a grain of salt.

I can give Tully some credit for running with this idea, but it's more a wild theory than fact. There is much we do know, and don't know about the Bronte family, and the lives of the famed sisters have enchanted us for generations.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ran across this book a couple of months ago after I'd finished a biography of the Brontes & bought it out of curiosity. It is a very interesting book! While a work of fiction, according to the blurb on the back cover, the author, a noted criminologist, wrote it after becoming fascinated by inconsistencies he found in the accounts of the lives & deaths of the Brontes. It may be fiction, but it sure rings true enough to make one wonder, "What if?"

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an interesting read! I found it all very plausible but I think it would have been nice to know what facts were fiction and which ones were real. The only problem I had with this book is that it really dragged on and on and became quite repetitive. Still, I'm glad I had a chance to read this book, which was really interesting.

[Vic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting twist on the Bronte story, claiming to represent, in novel form, the author's research regarding the deaths of the Bronte family.
The structure is based on the claimed discovery of the diaries of the Bronte's housekeeper and their validation by the lawyer who found them. My main problem with the book lies in the way the lawyer's strand is used, which simply reinforces the story in the diary, leaving the real question of how much of this is actually aligned to the known facts up in the air.
I think the novel would have been more powerful if the lawyer's investigation had been an open account of where the diaries added material, where (if) they diverged from what ids known to have happened and which parts of the story are part of the existing record.

[Carol Waters · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terribly written with a terrible plot. The author decides that Emily Brontë plagiarized her drunken brother’s work so her secret boyfriend the curate poisoned the alcoholic in the hopes that he himself could make some profit from editing Wuthering Heights for Emily. It goes downhill from there.

The story is told in a monotonous tone by a servant girl who listens at windows and doors. There doesn’t appear to be three lines of dialogue in the entire book. Not descriptions, no emotions, no interactions, just, “he later told me these things” from the girl about the curate.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wirklich schlecht fand ich das Buch nicht, aber wirklich gut auch nicht. Die Geschichte lebt von Andeutungen auf noch Schlimmeres, was auf der einen Seite eine gewisse Spannung aufbaut, auf der anderen Seite aber auch sehr nach Effekthascherei aussieht. Das Ganze wirkte auf mich etwas lieblos, fast schon wie eine schnell heruntergeschriebene Geschichte, um etwas Geld zu machen. Die Idee ist gut, die Umsetzung nur mäßig.

[June Schwarz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t generally hate a book; when I do, I almost invariably set it aside unfinished and move on to another.

But this book is so bad that I feel it necessary to warn anyone who is passionate about the Brontës: this book is so bad that I’m sorry it exists in the world, and no one I’ve talked to about it could find anything nice to say.

Sometimes, a book can be bad and funny or bad and thoroughly enjoyable. This is not the case here.

If you enjoyed it, I’d love to know why.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was just awful. Granted Jane Eyre is one of my all time favorite books so a book where they are constantly making Charlotte Bronte look like a spoiled brat or a selfish spinster or a heartless shrew. The fictional narrator was just painful. Granted I am not a Bronte expert but this book felt cruel to their legacy, and at times implied that they did not write their books.

[Sarah Ingala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a tag sale because the title caught my interest. I would normally check the reviews and seeing the low rating would have put it back. So glad I didn’t because I thoroughly enjoyed reading it! I’m sure it has caused plenty of controversy, but I found it very intriguing and compelling.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting the first few chapters. After that I lost interest so I didn’t finish it. Each chapter was similar. I’m sure it was leading up to a real conclusion, and I could be wrong, but it seemed like the book could have come to a quicker conclusion. I’m being grumpy. It shouldn’t be read as fiction, more like a diary.

[caffeinated reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly intriguing but in the end I would say this book is abhorrently scurrilous. There are insinuations and accusations of literary theft, pederasty, poisoning, adultery, and all other abominations. If you are a fan of the Brontes, this book masquerading as "research-based", will set your teeth on edge.

[Фильо · Rating 2 out of 5]

Не мога и не желая да дочета тази книга без всякакви художествени достойнства, представяща цялото семейство Бронте и обкръжението им тъмни, мрачни краски: порочни същества, отдали се на низости и престъпления. Не, не и не!