The Brontë Sisters
It is striking to contemplate that an awesome, singular, irreproducible wave of literature that would sweep the world for two centuries began in a parsonage in remote Yorkshire, England. The Brontë sisters and, to a lesser subsidiary extent, their older brother Branwell worked hard and professionally at making childhood dreams and fantasies become real in the fields of fiction and poetry.
Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) , and Anne (1820-1849) are responsible for seven finished novels and a fair scattering of poetry. Each novel has grown in critical estimation with the passing years. Each novel is acknowledged by both fellow writers and generations of critics as strange, powerful, textured, dense, and simultaneously of their time and ahead of their time. Each sister has her distinctive voice, each her reader-partisans, and yet the feeling of a family of voices and thoughts and concerns is strong.
A legacy of influence is mysteriously vague in later literature — perhaps Thomas Hardy? But just say the phrase “the madwoman in the attic” or breathe one name, “Cathy . . .” — and you have the staying power of their creations.
I have included some associated fiction, including a mystery series with the sisters as the detectives and a notable Young Adult novel. I will be alert to adding other material as I discover it. Enjoy!
Wuthering Heights [Macmillan Collector's Library edition]
Wuthering Heights [Macmillan Collector's Library edition]
Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.. This edition of Wuthering Heights features an afterword by David Pinching.
One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Brontë's haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love. Her tragically short life is brilliantly imagined in the major film, Emily, starring Emma Mackey in the title role.
One wild, snowy night on the Yorkshire moors, a gentleman asks about Wuthering Heights, the remote farmhouse inhabited by his mysterious landlord. He is told about the tragic romance of the beautiful, headstrong Cathy and the orphan Heathcliff, who – although desperately in love with her – is rejected in favour of a rich suitor. But Cathy cannot forget him, and he develops a lust for revenge that will take over his life as he attempts to win her back, and to destroy everyone, and everything, he considers responsible for his loss.