Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, houses the largest and most important collection of Brontëana in the world and has been my frequent destination during the writing of this book. I would like to thank all the staff of the museum and library for their kindness and help, but especially the Collections Manager, Ann Dinsdale, whose expertise and lively interest in my subject has made every visit to the Parsonage Library a great pleasure. I would also like to thank Sarah Laycock for her unfailingly prompt and efficient answers to many queries and Linda Proctor-Mackley and Jenna Holmes for help along the way.

For the use of copyright materials and illustrations, and kind permission to quote from manuscripts in their collections, I would like to thank the Brontë Society, British Library, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, City Archive of Brussels, Keighley Local Studies Library, National Portrait Gallery, New York Public Library, Pierpont Morgan Library and Royal Library of Belgium. Many individual members of staff at libraries, galleries and other institutions have generously given me their time, attention and professional expertise during the research for this book, and I would particularly like to thank Maria Molestina and the staff of the Manuscript Reading Room, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City; Isaac Gewirtz, Lyndsi Barnes and Joshua McKeon of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of New York Public Library; Elizabeth Denlinger of the Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library; Katie Thornton and Lucy Arnold of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; Rebekah Lunt and Fran Baker of the John Rylands Library, Manchester; Kirsty Gaskin of Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley; Caroline Brown of Keighley Local Studies Library; Timothy Engels of Brown University Library; the staff of the Upper Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Dr David Smith of St Anne’s College Library, Oxford; and the staff of the Manuscript Room at the British Library. I am also very grateful to the staff of the Heinz Archive of the National Portrait Gallery, and especially to Tim Moreton, who in September 2013 arranged a private viewing for me of George Richmond’s portrait of Charlotte Brontë, not at that date on display in the gallery.

My debts to the many Brontë scholars and biographers who have preceded me will be clear from the book’s notes and bibliography, but I would like to pay particular tribute here to the fine biographies of Charlotte Brontë by Lyndall Gordon, Rebecca Fraser and the late Winifred Gérin, and to Lucasta Miller’s seminal study of Brontë reception, The Brontë Myth. Dr Juliet Barker’s magisterial work, The Brontës, which drew together a wealth of primary and secondary material about the family and their times and established a base of facts about them of unmatchable value and solidity, has been an invaluable resource, and I am also very grateful for Dr Barker’s responses to my queries during the writing of this book. Christine Alexander’s extensive research into, and editing of, the Brontë juvenilia has been of inestimable value to me, not least for her expertise in deciphering and interpreting the minuscule handwriting used by the Brontë siblings in their earliest writings. I would also like to express my appreciation of the work of Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars in their fine edition of The Art of the Brontës and that of Victor A. Neufeldt in The Poems of Charlotte Brontë, Sue Lonoff in The Belgian Essays and, in various other critical and editorial capacities, Herbert Rosengarten, Edward Chitham, Patsy Stoneman, Tom Winnifrith, Sally Shuttleworth, Dinah Birch, Dudley Green, Stevie Davies, Marianne Thormählen and Janet Gezari.

But my greatest debt is to the scholarship of Margaret Smith, whose three-volume edition of The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, published between 1994 and 2004, has opened out to readers the full scope and significance of Charlotte Brontë’s correspondence. Smith published many items for the first time, corrected attributions, dates and readings, and set all of the letters in a context of impeccably researched annotation and commentary. Her edition has been the essential tool in my biography, as the fullest and most suggestive source to date of Charlotte Brontë’s behaviour and private opinions, and I am very grateful for her generous permission to quote from her work.

For their various contributions of information, encouragement and hospitality I would like to thank Janet Allen, Jay Barksdale, Kate Clanchy, Sarah Fermi, Lyndall Gordon, Sir John and Lady Sue Harman, Alexandra Harris, Selina Hastings, Elliot Kendall, Deborah Lutz, Lucasta Miller, Patsy Stoneman, Marion Taylor and Robin Walker. Mark Bostridge has generously shared his ideas and opinions on the Brontës with me for the past three years, and I am very grateful to him for all our conversations on the subject, and for his ready provision of leads and information. In Belgium, the members of the Brontë Brussels Group, led by Helen MacEwan, proved most convivial and knowledgeable company on two visits, in 2012 and 2015, and I have found their website and blogs of constant use in my research. Helen has also given much friendly help and advice, especially about illustrations, for which I am very grateful. In Haworth, Marian Reynolds at Cherry Tree Cottage and Brenda Taylor and Carol at Ponden Guest House were welcoming hosts, while Steven Wood was extremely generous with his time and assistance, especially over maps and local history sources. He was the best possible guide to changes in the area over the past two hundred years, and walking Haworth moor with him in the autumn of 2014 was pivotally important to my research as well as a great pleasure.

I would like to thank Carolyn Dinshaw and Marget Long for being such charming companions at North Lees Hall in the summer of 2014. I would also like to thank the staff of Hollybank School, Mirfield (the site of Roe Head School), the staff of Red House Gomersal, and Jocelyn Hill, John Williams and Janet Allen at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, Manchester.

At Viking Penguin I would like to thank a superb team, led by my editor Venetia Butterfield, with assistance from Hermione Thompson and Isabel Wall. Donna Poppy’s meticulous reading at the copy-editing stage saved me from making many mistakes, and I am very grateful for her strenuous efforts on behalf of achieving a clean text. Julia Murday, Celeste Ward-Best, Amelia Fairney, Samantha Fanaken and Samantha Halstead have dealt with marketing and publicity with effortless professionalism, and Keith Taylor has guided the whole project expertly through production with the help of Emma Brown, Sara Granger and Claire Mason.

I was very fortunate to be awarded a grant from The Authors’ Foundation during the writing of this book and would like to express my gratitude to the assessors of the award and to its administrators, The Society of Authors.

Lastly, I would like to thank Zoë Waldie, my agent, for her invaluable friendship, kindness and support, her assistant Lexie Hamblin at Rogers, Coleridge and White, and also Hannah Westland, whose infectious enthusiasm for this project at its inception was extremely important to me and who has remained a most affectionate well-wisher throughout.

Paul Strohm has been the most patient of partners during the writing of this book, and it is dedicated to him with love and gratitude.

Select Bibliography

Unless otherwise stated, references are to the Oxford World’s Classics editions of the Brontë novels, in their most recent paperback issues.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

Jane Eyre, edited by Margaret Smith, with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford 2008)

Shirley, edited by Herbert Rosengarten and Margaret Smith, with an introduction and notes by Janet Gezari (Oxford, 2008)

Villette, edited by Margaret Smith, with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford, 2008)

The Professor, edited by Margaret Smith and Herbert Rosengarten, with an introduction by Margaret Smith (Oxford, 2008)

EMILY BRONTË

Wuthering Heights, text edited by Ian Jack, with an introduction and additional notes by Helen Small (Oxford, 2009)

ANNE BRONTË

Agnes Grey, edited by Robert Inglesfield and Hilda Marsden, with an introduction and additional notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford, 2010)

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, edited by Herbert Rosengarten, with an introduction and additional notes by Josephine McDonagh (Oxford, 2008)

A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood (London, 1914)

Adamson, Alan H., Mr Charlotte Brontë: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls (Montreal, 2008)

Alexander, Christine, The Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1983)

—, and Sellars, Jane, The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge, 1995)

—, and Smith, Margaret (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Brontës (Oxford, 2006)

Allott, Miriam (ed.), The Brontës: The Critical Heritage (London, 1974)

Anon., ‘Two Brussels Schoolfellows of Charlotte Brontë’, BST, 5:23 (1913)

Anon., ‘The Recently Discovered Letters from Charlotte Brontë to Professor Constantin Heger’, BST, 5:24 (1914)

Anon., ‘The Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls’, BST, 15:79 (1969)

Atkins, William, The Moor: Lives, Landscape, Literature (London, 2014)

Barker, Juliet R. V., ‘Subdued Expectations: Charlotte Brontë’s Marriage Settlement’, BST, 19:1–2 (1986)

—, ‘The Brontë Portraits: A Mystery Solved’, BST, 20:1 (1990)

Barnard, Robert, ‘Dickens and the Brontës’, BST, 25:2 (2000)

Barrett, Sarah, A Room of Their Own: 80 Years of the Brontë Parsonage Museum 1928–2008 (Kendal, 2008)

Bellamy, Joan, ‘More precious than rubies’: Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë, Strong-minded Woman (Beverley, 2002)

Bentley, Phyllis, The Brontës and Their World (London, 1969)

Bostridge, Mark, ‘Charlotte Brontë and George Richmond’, BST, 17:86 (1976)

—, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008)

Brontë, Patrick, Cottage Poems (Halifax, 1811)

—, The Rural Minstrel: A Miscellany of Descriptive Poems (Halifax, 1813)

—, The Cottage in the Wood; or, The Art of Becoming Rich and Happy (Bradford, 1815)

Chadwick, Ellis H., In the Footsteps of the Brontës (London, 1914)

—, ‘A Gift from M. le Professeur Constantin Heger to Charlotte Brontë’, The Nineteenth Century and After (April 1917)

Chapman, Maria Weston (ed.), Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography (3 vols.; London, third edition, 1887)

Chapple, J. A. V., assisted by John Geoffrey Sharps, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Portrait in Letters (Manchester, 2007)

Chapple, J. A. V., and Shelston, Alan (eds.), Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell (Manchester, 2003)

Chitham, Edward (ed.), The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (London, 1979)

—, and Winnifrith, T. J., Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems (London, 1983)

Clark, Cumberland, Charles Dickens and the Yorkshire Schools (London, 1918)

Cochrane, Margaret and Robert, My Dear Boy: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls, B.A., Husband of Charlotte Brontë (Beverley, 1999)

Davies, Stevie, Emily Brontë: Heretic (London, 1994)

Depage, Henri, La Vie d’Antoine Depage 1862–1925 (Brussels, 1956)

Dinsdale, Ann, Old Haworth (Keighley, 1999)

—, The Brontës at Haworth (London, 2006)

Easson, Angus, ‘Two Suppressed Opinions in Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë’, BST, 16:4 (1974).

Feaver, William, The Art of John Martin (Oxford, 1975)

Fermi, Sarah, ‘The Brontës at the Clergy Daughters’ School: When Did They Leave?’, BST, 21:6 (1996)

—, ‘Mellaney Hayne: Charlotte Brontë’s School Friend’, BST, 27:3 (2002)

Foister, S. R., ‘The Brontë Portraits’, BST, 18:5 (1985)

Frank, Katherine, A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë (Boston, 1990)

Fraser, Rebecca, The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family (New York, 1988)

Gérin, Winifred, Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1967)

—, Emily Brontë (Oxford, 1971)

— (ed.), Charlotte Brontë, Five Novelettes, transcribed from the original manuscripts and edited by Winifred Gérin (London, 1971)

Gordon, Lyndall, Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life (London, 1994)

Hargreaves, G. D., ‘The Publishing of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell’, BST, 15:79 (1969)

Hatfield, C. W., ‘Charlotte Brontë and Hartley Coleridge, 1840’ (includes ‘Ashworth’), BST, 10:1 (1940)

Holgate, Ivy, ‘The Structure of Shirley’, BST, 14:2 (1962)

Hook, Ruth, ‘The Father of the Family’, BST, 17:2 (1977)

Hopewell, D. G., ‘Cowan Bridge’, BST, 6:31 (1921)

Ingham, Patricia, The Brontës (Authors in Context) (Oxford, 2006)

Kay, Brian, and Knowles, James, ‘Where Jane Eyre and Mary Barton were Born’, BST, 15:2 (1967)

Kellett, Jocelyn, Haworth Parsonage: The Home of the Brontës (Keighley, 1977)

Lane, Margaret, The Brontë Story (London, 1953)

Lever, Sir T., ‘Charlotte Brontë and George Smith: An Extract from the late Sir Tresham Lever’s Unpublished Biography of George Smith’, BST, 17:87 (1977)

Leyland, Francis A., The Brontë Family, with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë (2 vols.; London, 1886)

Liddington, Jill, ‘Anne Lister and Emily Brontë 1838–1839: Landscape with Figures’, BST, 26:1 (2001)

Lock, John, and Dixon, Canon W. T., A Man of Sorrow: The Life, Letters and Times of the Rev. Patrick Brontë (London, 1965)

Lonoff, Sue, ‘An Unpublished Memoir by Paul Heger’, BST, 20:6 (1992)

— (ed.), Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë: The Belgian Essays (Yale, 1996)

Macdonald, Frederika, ‘The Brontës at Brussels’, Woman at Home (July 1894)

—, The Secret of Charlotte Brontë (London, 1914)

MacEwan, Helen, The Brontës in Brussels (London, 2014)

Miller, Lucasta, The Brontë Myth (London, 2001)

Morden, Barbara C., John Martin: Apocalypse Now! (Newcastle, 2010)

Oram, Eanne, ‘Brief for Miss Branwell’, BST, 14:4 (1964)

Palmer, Geoffrey, Dear Martha: The Letters of Arthur Bell Nicholls to Martha Brown (1862–1878), described and transcribed by Geoffrey Palmer (Keighley, 2004)

Ratchford, Fannie Elizabeth, The Brontës’ Web of Childhood (New York, 1941)

Ray, Gordon N. (ed.), The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, collected and edited by Gordon N. Ray (4 vols.; London, 1946)

Robinson, Mary, Emily Brontë (1883)

Ruijssenaars, Eric, Charlotte Brontë’s Promised Land: The Pensionnat Heger and Other Brontë Places in Brussels (Keighley, 2000)

—, The Pensionnat Revisited: More Light Shed on the Brussels of the Brontës (Leiden, 2003)

Seaward, Mark R. D., ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Napoleonic Relic’, BST, 17:3 (1978)

Shorter, Clement K., The Brontës, Life and Letters: being an attempt to present a full and final record of the lives of the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë from the biographies of Mrs Gaskell and others, and from numerous hitherto unpublished manuscripts and letters (2 vols.; London, 1908)

Shuttleworth, Sally, Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology (Cambridge, 1996)

Smith, Margaret, ‘Newly Acquired Brontë Letters, Transcriptions and Notes’, BST, 21:7 (1996)

Spielmann, M. H., The Inner History of the Brontë–Heger Letters (London, 1919)

Stevens, Joan (ed.), Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere (Auckland, 1972)

Stirling, A. M. W., The Richmond Papers (London, 1926)

Stoneman, Patsy, Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (Hemel Hempstead, 1996)

—, Charlotte Brontë (Tavistock, 2013)

Taylor, Mary, The First Duty of Women: A Series of Articles Reprinted from the Victoria Magazine 1865 to 1870 (London, 1870)

—, Miss Miles: A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago, with an introduction by Janet H. Murray (Oxford, 1990)

Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1991)

Thormählen, Marianne (ed.), The Brontës in Context (Cambridge, 2012)

Uglow, Jenny, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (London, 1993)

Weir, Edith M., ‘Cowan Bridge: New Light from Old Documents’, BST, 11:56 (1946)

—, ‘New Brontë Material Comes to Light’, BST, 11:4 (1949)

—, ‘The Hegers and a Yorkshire Family’, BST, 14:3 (1963)

Whitbread, Helena (ed.), No Priest but Love: Journals of Anne Lister 1824–1826 (London, 1992)

Whitehead, Barbara, Charlotte Brontë and Her ‘dearest Nell’: The Story of a Friendship (Otley, 1993)

Whitworth, Alan, Thornton Through Time (Stroud, 2011)

Wise, T. J., and Symington, J. A. (eds.), The Miscellaneous and Unpublished Writings of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (2 vols.; Oxford, 1936, 1938)

Wood, Steven, Haworth, Oxenhope & Stanbury from Old Photographs (Stroud, 2011). Vol. 1: Domestic & Social Life; Vol. 2: Trade & Industry

—, Haworth, ‘A strange uncivilized little place’ (Stroud, 2012)

—, Haworth, Oxenhope & Stanbury from Old Maps (Stroud, 2014)

Yates, W. W., The Father of the Brontës, His Life and Work at Dewsbury and Hartshead (Leeds, 1897)