Emily Jane Brontë was the most solitary member of an English provincial family, unique and tightly knit. Born in 1818, she shared the parsonage of the town of Haworth, Yorkshire, with her older sister, Charlotte; her brother, Branwell; her younger sister, Anne; and her father, Reverend Patrick Brontë. All five were poets and writers, and all but Branwell would publish at least one book.
Charlotte Brontë encountered a manuscript volume of poems of her sister in 1845. At the urging of her sister, Emily's poems were published pseudonymously in 1846, along with Anne's and Charlotte's. An almost complete silence welcomed this volume but the three sisters immediately began to write novels, boosted by the fact of publication. Emily's effort was Wuthering Heights; appearing in 1847, Charlotte, whose Jane Eyre had already been published with great acclaim, treated it at first as a lesser work. The name of Emily Brontë did not emerge from behind her pseudonym Ellis Bell until 1850, when the second edition of her novel appeared.... Read More
