All Alone: The Life and Private History of Emily Jane Brontë

by Romer Wilson

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Biography

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

During a brief writing career (almost entirely limited to the 1920s) Romer Wilson wrote produced novels, two novellas, a play, a biography, and a posthumously published collection of short stories. She compiled and edited three volumes of fairy tales from around the world. Her novels, highly philosophical and sometimes lyrically overblown, treat the existential and epistemological dilemmas facing postwar Europe. Many of her protagonists are artists or philosophers struggling to achieve or understand perfection in a world riven with suffering and imperfection. She often explores the impact of love and the effects on society of war or of mechanisation, in fiction which suggests a longing for a pre-industrial pastoral past. (From: http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/s... )

From Virginia Woolf's letter to Sydney Waterlow (number 1176), May 23, 1921: "I am reading Miss Romer Wilson's new novel [The Death of Society], which Jack Squire says is the greatest work of genius ever written by a woman (or words to that effect). Naturally one doesn't like that. And I am hopeless at judging novels. I keep thinking that I should write them better."

Romer Wilson's The Death of Society won the Hawthornden Prize in 1921.

Born: 26 December 1891 Florence Roma Muir Wilson
Died: 11 January 1930 RW died of tuberculosis at Lausanne in Switzerland

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the opening paragraphs this is clearly not a typical biography. A very evocative turn of phrase conjuring up a distinctive mental image of the scenery with its pink beads of heather buds, sets the scene very effectively and illustrates the author's affinity with the landscape. Some good insights into how Patrick's character was formed partly in response to everything he lost in leaving Thornton are thoughtfully offered.
The whole book uses Emily's poetry to illustrate her character leading to some speculative claims such as a rejection at four years old which led to her believing she had always been unloved, a dangerous leap from fiction. It leads also to the chapter called The Fit alleging that aunt Branwell probably imprisoned a rebellious Emily in the room where her mother had died and in a fit Emily imagined her mother return to comfort her. The author supports this with the red room scene from Jane Eyre dubiously alleging Charlotte was incapable of such imaginative creation.
The alleged sense of imprisonment based on Emily's poems leads to an interpretation of jealousy of Branwell and frustration at the restrictions of her female life even as a child.
The author shares a great passion and identifies with the wild moorland in empathy with Emily's great love of the same moors.
Some conclusions feel overly sweeping; on the flimsy basis of Shirley's feelings about Cowper and Rousseau the author states Emily shared those feelings. Sadly so very little is known about Emily except through her poems and novel there is a fascination in this sometimes plausible and intriguing speculation. This takes on a particularly disturbing possibility in relation to the "evidence" gathered to support the theory Emily experienced some form of horror or of traumatic betrayal which led to her fascination with the dark hero and such deep anger and feelings of imprisonment in 1838. Some conclusions, such as Branwell not being the model for Heathcliff are well argued on clear date based evidence.
Inevitably Charlotte's life is discussed in some detail and as a character she suffers as merely talented in comparison with Emily's genius.
The author has invested a great deal of thought and close study of Emily's work to produce a deeply moving story. The complete lasting effect of reading this is of fascination and sadness but it is impossible to leave off reading even though so much is already known about the Brontes.

[Sandy Lender · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romer Wilson introduces some ideas that I've not seen in my other research of Emily, but quite a bit of it requires a leap of faith...quite a bit of speculation, as it were.
He makes some compelling arguments with well-constructed prose.
I was disappointed in the vanity-press presentation. It takes away from the legitimacy of the information. If his research is valid, why the cut-rate publishing? Very odd.
I don't know if I would recommend this book or not. To a serious scholar who could weigh the information and theories inside, yes, pick it up and handle with care. To the casual reader looking for information on the Brontes, there are some great sources I can point you to in other realms.

[James Anson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this builds on suppositions from Charlotte Bronte’s letters, since Emily’s personal writing seems to be so scant. Nevertheless, through analysis of the Bronte family history, there is a great deal of insight and a vivid picture starts to form of Emily physically and spiritually. Wilson’s style is also engaging and includes analysis of Emily’s poetry which is sometimes overlooked. Well worth it.

[Ben Lovegrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biography based mostly on assumptions about Emily's poems. Interesting psychological theories about Emily as can be expected from a book written in the era when psychology was fashionable. It traces the development of Heathcliff as Emily's "Dark Hero".