November 2023: The Brontë Sisters

In November, we are going to revisit a family of English novelists and poets - the 3 Brontë Sisters: Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), Emily Brontë (1818–1848) and Anne Brontë (1820–1849).

Between the 3 of them, they published a total of 7 novels (4 by Charlotte, 1 by Emily and 2 by Anne). For most people, it is Wuthering Heights, the only novel by Emily, that comes to mind first when they hear the name Brontë - or at least that is the case where and when I grew up - although Jane Eyre is probably as popular. They also wrote and published shorter works.

What do you plan to read? What had you read and what do you think of the 3 Victorian sisters?

PS: I've read all 7 novels through the years, some of them multiple times. The last one I read was The Professor a decade ago- the only one I had not read earlier, the earliest of Charlotte's novels, published after her death though (review here: https://www.librarything.com/work/19852/reviews/98315114 ) and despite it being imperfect, I enjoyed it enough. Not a good introduction to the author but if you had read the major novels, you may want to give it a try. :)

I've also read all 7 of the novels. I've read Jane Eyre many times since childhood; I've read Wuthering Heights 4 times, the last time this past January for my book club, and still not a fan; and I've read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall twice. The other 4 novels I've read once each.

My plan is to re-read Agnes Grey. However, I'll be reading it in October, to coincide with another challenge (Victober--Victorian October).

I have not yet read Shirley or Agnes Grey. I plan on reading one of these, perhaps both!

I have read most of their novels, except Villette and The Professor. So I may read one or other of those, though I've also been promising myself to re-read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights for years. Probably Tenant of Wildfell Hall is actually my favourite, and I think Anne Bronte gets unfairly overlooked sometimes.

I re-read Agnes Grey this month. I had remembered much of the story that concerns Agnes as a governess, but had forgotten the love story and ending, so it was a satisfying re-read.

I did read Agnes Grey in October, because that was when I was able to check it out of the library. I really did like this book and not sure why it doesn't seem to be as popular as either Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. I'll see if I can get to Shirley in November.

ive read jane eyre that Ive lovee since HS and wuthering heights, which really dd not like. Ill read something by Anne for sure

I have started Shirley and am a little shocked to find it has almost 700 pages. Don't know if I can finish this in time, but I am enjoying it much more than I expected. The eponymous heroine doesn't make her entry until page 200, that's a long wait!

None of the books interested me enough to read them, so I got the biography The Brontes wild genius on the moors, by juliet Barker.

I have read most of Villette by Charlotte Bronte. While it was as well written as one would expect, I found it too slow and have given up on it around 70% of the way through. The main character Lucy Snowe is an English teacher at a girls' school in the fictional city of Villette in the fictional country of Labassecour (which feels rather like Belgium). I enjoyed some of her passive aggressive clashes with Mme Beck, the headmistress, who was probably the most interesting character in the novel, but was rather bored by the romantic manoeuvrings (and it's not that I never like romance as a plot element, it just didn't work for me here). This novel was a reworking of the first novel Charlotte wrote The Professor, but which was published posthumously; the theme and plot is similar, but characters and setting different.

So all in all I was disappointed, and this cements my firm belief that Anne Bronte is my favourite of the three sisters, and too often overlooked.

>10 john257hopper: With the exception of Jane Eyre, which I will always love, I completely agree with you. I find Charlotte's other works tedious and I dislike all the revenge in Wuthering Heights. By contrast, both of Anne's books I enjoyed (and read at least twice), although not as much as Jane Eyre, but definitely miles ahead of any of the other Bronte novels. I will qualify this by saying I've read Charlotte's other books only once each, so maybe I should give at least one of them another chance. Maybe. When I have no other books to read.

>11 kac522: I finished Shirley at least back in 2020 and there were a couple of interesting characters and a more well rooted historical backdrop at least.

I was only able to read Vilette once many years ago and found it accomplished but cold in stark contrast to Jane Eyre which is a regular reread for me.

In my teenage years Wuthering Heights excited my youthful imagination. Reading it again years later I too was repelled by Heathcliff's obsessive desire foe revenge which he visited on the next generation. However those wild Yorkshire moors are calling to me again. It is an immensely atmospheric book, reminding one that Emily Bronte was an accomplished poet.

The enthusiasm for Anne Bronte encourages me to try her again, having only read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

>13 Maura49: Agnes Grey, Anne's other novel, is a quiet one in many ways but I really enjoyed it.

>14 john257hopper: I keep hearing that this is worth reading. I will put on my tbr list- thank you.

Although after the month end, I decided to read In Search of Anne Bronte by Nick Holland. I thought this was a brilliantly written biography of the youngest of the Bronte sisters.

My review was:

"She has often been overlooked compared to her elder sisters, but in my view, she is the author of the very best novels in the family's combined body of literary work. Her novels Agnes Grey and Tenant of Wildfell Hall deal with issues such as child misbehaviour, neglectful parenting, domestic abuse and alcoholism in a way that was highly unusual if not unique for the time. And her poetry has a stark and bleak simplicity to it (as does that of Emily). It is particularly sad that a large part of the reason for the denigration of Anne's work is down to the efforts of the surviving sister Charlotte to diminish her memory, especially preventing the republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for a decade after Anne's death (despite the fact that it had been the fastest selling Bronte novel of them all). It is deeply sad that such jealousy should arise on the part of another member of this exceptionally literarily gifted family.

That said, this book shows the closeness of the sisters and, indeed of the whole household, very clearly, and their general separation as a family unit from most other members of society (isolation which may, in part, tragically account for the deaths of Emily and Anne in particular at such young ages, as they hadn't acquired any immunity to the then lethal diseases that were rife, especially TB). Anne comes across as a very sensitive, unconfident and a shy young lady (albeit not quite as much as Emily), anxious to please her sisters and be seen as good as they, but the author is keen to emphasise how she was firm in her principles and could be forthright in the face of injustice. She comes across to me as the middle ground between the ethereal otherworldliness of Emily and the more worldly and more cynical Charlotte.

Seeming to be always constantly ill in her adulthood, with colds, coughs, and asthma, Anne was sadly easy prey for the TB that she probably caught during a visit to London in summer 1848, when she and Charlotte visited their publisher to unveil themselves as the real Acton and Currer Bell. Unwittingly, she seems to have passed the disease on to Emily and their brother Branwell, causing both their deaths before the end of that year, with her own passing early in the following summer at the age of 29, not at the Haworth parsonage like all her siblings, but in Scarborough.

And thereafter followed the tragic, albeit non malicious, ruining of her reputation by Charlotte, who may also have destroyed much surviving material written by both her deceased sisters. It took over a century until Anne's reputation was restored and, in the author's words, "Readers across the world are now placing Anne where she belongs, alongside her sisters Charlotte and Emily, and in the very first rank of nineteenth-century writers."

>16 john257hopper: Thanks for the review, John. I'm off to secure this book!