The Brontes Juliet Barker

By Juliet Barker

The story of the tragic Brontë family is familiar: we all know about the half-mad, austere and repressive father, the drunken wastrel of a brother, wild, romantic Emily, unrequited Anne and Charlotte, the sole survivor, virtually imprisoned by her father’s demands. Or do we?

Juliet Barker’s landmark book is the first definitive history of the Brontës – and it demolishes many myths. Based on eleven years of research among newly-discovered letters by every member of the family, original manuscripts and the newspapers of the time, it gives a radically new picture of the Brontës’ lives from beginning to end.

Juliet Barker’s The Brontës is a spectacular achievement: a vivid picture of nineteenth-century Yorkshire, a treasure trove of new information, including newly-discovered poems and letters by Patrick, Branwell, Emily and Anne, published for the first time in this book – and, most of all, an engrossing and intimate chronicle of an astonishingly creative family, which will remain the definitive biography for many years to come.