The Brontës: everything you wanted to know

Summary

History Extra Podcast: "The Brontës: Everything You Wanted to Know"
Release Date: November 10, 2024
Host: Clara O'Callaghan
Guest: Dr. Claire O'Callaghan, Expert on the Brontë Sisters

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1. Introduction to the Brontë Sisters

Clara O'Callaghan opens the episode by introducing the Brontë sisters—Emily, Charlotte, and Anne—and their enduring literary legacy. Produced by Immediate Media, the podcast delves into the fascinating lives of these literary figures, exploring their upbringing, works, and the personal tragedies that shaped them.

[00:19] Host Clara O'Callaghan: "From their remote Yorkshire Parsonage, sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë penned stories that would capture the imagination of generations of readers."

2. Early Life and Family Background

Dr. Claire O'Callaghan provides an overview of the Brontë family's origins and early years in Thornton, West Yorkshire. The Brontës were part of a larger family, originally consisting of six children, including two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, and a brother, Branwell.

[01:19] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "The children, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, were originally one of six children... They lived in Thornton but moved to Haworth in 1820, where the Brontë Parsonage Museum is today."

3. Childhood and the Impact of Tragedy

The sisters' childhood was marked by significant tragedy, including the early deaths of their mother, Maria Brontë, and older siblings, Maria and Elizabeth. These losses profoundly affected the siblings' upbringing and their later literary works.

[02:25] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Maria Brontë becomes quite ill soon after arriving in Haworth... She didn't get the time to see them grow older, which is part of the tragedy of the Brontë story."

4. Development of Imaginary Worlds

A pivotal aspect of the Brontës' childhood was their creation of elaborate imaginary worlds, Gondal and Angria, which served as a foundation for their creative development. These imaginative games fostered their storytelling skills and character development.

[04:38] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "The children's imaginary worlds, Angria and Gondal, are fundamental to the Brontës' creative development."

5. Education and Early Careers

The Brontë sisters attended boarding schools under challenging conditions, which influenced their perspectives and later writings. Their experiences as governesses and teachers further shaped their literary themes, highlighting issues of subservience and societal expectations.

[09:17] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Anne Brontë's experience as a governess is vividly depicted in her first novel, Agnes Grey."

6. Writing Careers and Publication

Initially aspiring poets, the Brontës collectively published a book of poems under pseudonyms. Despite the initial commercial failure, this endeavor propelled them toward novel writing. Charlotte's persistence led to the publication of Jane Eyre, while Emily and Anne simultaneously published Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

[19:13] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "In 1846, the sisters collectively, under their pseudonyms Currer Ellis and Acton Bell, published Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which unfortunately sold only a handful of copies."

7. Reception of Their Works

The Brontës' novels received a mix of intrigue and criticism. Early reviewers were baffled by the quality of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, often speculating about the true identities of the authors and questioning the morality of the content.

[22:49] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Early Victorian reviewers speculated about the identities of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, questioning whether such works could have been penned by women."

8. Relationships Among the Sisters and with Their Brother Branwell

The Brontë siblings shared a close-knit bond, especially Emily and Anne, described as "like twins" by childhood friend Ellen Nussey. However, relationships within the family were complex, particularly with their brother Branwell, whose struggles with ambition and substance abuse created tensions.

[30:08] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Emily and Anne were inseparable companions, supporting each other through ill health and familial pressures."

9. Tragic Events and the Spread of Illness

The year 1848 marked a cascade of tragedies for the Brontës. The death of their brother Branwell in September was swiftly followed by Emily's and Anne's bouts with tuberculosis, leading to their untimely deaths. Charlotte, grappling with the loss of her siblings, continued to write amidst immense personal grief.

[36:47] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "In 1848, Bramwell dies first, followed by Emily in December and then Anne in May the next year—each loss compounding the family's sorrow."

10. Charlotte's Marriage and Final Years

Charlotte Brontë found a semblance of happiness through her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, the curate for her father. Their union was short-lived, as Charlotte succumbed to consumption shortly after their honeymoon in Ireland, ending a life filled with both creative triumphs and personal tragedies.

[39:17] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Charlotte and Arthur married in June 1854 and enjoyed a brief period of happiness before her death in March 1855."

11. Legacy and What Could Have Been

Dr. Claire O'Callaghan reflects on the potential the Brontë sisters had for further literary contributions had they survived. Their existing works have left an indelible mark on literature, and their unfinished projects hint at the broader narratives they might have explored.

[43:30] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "They all had so much promise, and their ambition is what continues to inspire us today."

Notable Quotes

• [04:38] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "The children's imaginary worlds, Angria and Gondal, are fundamental to the Brontës' creative development."

• [19:13] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell is commercially a bit of a flop. It only sells a handful of copies."

• [22:49] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Early Victorian reviewers speculated about the identities of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, questioning whether such works could have been penned by women."

• [30:08] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "Emily and Anne were inseparable companions, supporting each other through ill health and familial pressures."

• [36:47] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "In 1848, Bramwell dies first, followed by Emily in December and then Anne in May the next year—each loss compounding the family's sorrow."

• [43:30] Dr. Claire O'Callaghan: "They all had so much promise, and their ambition is what continues to inspire us today."

Conclusion

The episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the Brontë sisters' lives, emphasizing their resilience, creative genius, and the profound impact of their personal tragedies. Dr. Claire O'Callaghan's insights shed light on the complexities of their relationships, the challenges they faced, and the enduring legacy of their literary contributions.

[End of Content]

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Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. From their remote Yorkshire Parsonage, sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne Bronte penned stories that would capture the imagination of generations of readers. But just how popular were books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights at the time? How did childhood games influence the Brontes in their later writing? And how close can we get to their individual personalities? Speaking with Lauren Good, Clara O'Callaghan explores the lives of the literary sisters from their Yorkshire upbringing to their tragic ends.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

Thanks so much for joining me today, Claire. To talk all about the Bronte sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, let's talk about their beginnings. First, when and where were they born?

[Lauren Good]

So the Bronte sisters are born in.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Thornton, which is in West Yorkshire, and.

[Lauren Good]

The children, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, were originally one of six children. So there were two older sisters, Maria.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And Elizabeth, and a brother, Bramwell, and they were born to Patrick Bronte, the.

[Lauren Good]

Reverend Patrick Bronte, who was an Irishman, and Maria Bramwell, who was from Cornwall.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They lived in Thornton but moved to.

[Lauren Good]

Haworth, which is where of course today the Bronte Parsonage Museum is set.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It was known as the Haworth Parsonage back in the day. They moved there in 1820 and that's where they pretty much lived for most of their life.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

What were Patrick and Maria like as parents?

[Lauren Good]

So we don't have huge amounts of information on what they were like as parents. We know that actually the young life.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And the early life that they had in Haworth is blighted by a lot.

[Lauren Good]

Of tragedy, which really shapes the life that the children would go on to.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Have and the life that their parents gave them. So Maria Bronte becomes quite ill soon.

[Lauren Good]

After arriving in Haworth.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We don't know exactly what she was poorly with.

[Lauren Good]

We suspect it was something like uterine or ovarian cancer.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But the children were all really, really.

[Lauren Good]

Small at this point.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And there are recollections and historical accounts of her suffering and being in pain and being upset about her poor children. So she didn't get the time to see them grow older, which is part of the tragedy of the Bronte story. Patrick Bronte had sent the older children, Maria and Elizabeth, off to school, to.

[Lauren Good]

The clergy Daughters school at Cowent Bridge.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Which was a boarding school, and soon after Charlotte and Emily went there, and we know that he went back to.

[Lauren Good]

Bring his daughters home because the conditions.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

There actually weren't very good. He was really appalled at how poorly his children were. We know Charlotte Bronte later talked about the conditions there, stunting her physical development, poor diet, cold, and ultimately led to a lot of sickness in that family.

[Lauren Good]

So within a very, very short space of time, the family unit that was and the kind of parental children relationship.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That was dramatically changed. Maria Bronte died in 1821, not long.

[Lauren Good]

After arriving in Haworth.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So the children were all single figures, really, really tiny. And then in 1824, as I said, not long after going to the Cowhon.

[Lauren Good]

Bridge School, the older two children, Maria.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And Elizabeth, they die.

[Lauren Good]

So that means then that the parental.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Relationship that's left is between a father who's a clergyman, he's a religious man, working man, and his four very, very young children. And that would have been a real.

[Lauren Good]

Challenge for him in the day because.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

His day would have been filled with.

[Lauren Good]

Doing services, visiting the people in his.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Community, visiting the sick, the dying, spending time with them.

[Lauren Good]

So his relationship with his children was.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Very different to maybe what it would have been had Maria been around. And we know, therefore that what happened was the children became very, very close knit the surviving children, and they formed their own bonds and spent their time together creating imaginary worlds.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

And it's these imaginary worlds that we've had a few questions about online. Louise on X asks to what extent did these childhood games, she calls them, and the imaginary realms of Gonzal and Angria, contribute to the development of the sisters later literary works?

[Lauren Good]

So the children's imaginary worlds, Angrier and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Gondal, are fundamental to the Brontes.

[Lauren Good]

It's fundamental to the creative development of their imagination.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

As we know, very famously, Brambles bought.

[Lauren Good]

Some toy soldiers and they each grabbed.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

A toy soldier and from there created.

[Lauren Good]

These characters, these imaginary worlds, which were.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Sprawling worlds and they created a whole kingdom associated with them. A lot of it is kind of.

[Lauren Good]

Colonial in its tone.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So these are military men setting up.

[Lauren Good]

Camps, setting up worlds, setting up communities.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

In Angria and in Glasstown, as they called it. And we can see those worlds as a form of apprenticeship, both for them as budding writers.

[Lauren Good]

So they're learning how to develop character, they're learning how to develop stories, they're.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Interacting with one another and play, acting out what these characters that they're creating, they're all based around these little soldiers, what they would say, what they would.

[Lauren Good]

Do, how they would play, what power.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They had what romance they would have.

[Lauren Good]

So they're essentially world building.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And as I say, it's very much a mode of apprenticeship. And then those skills that they learn in terms of storytelling, building a community.

[Lauren Good]

Character development, scene setting, plotting, all of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Those things are fundamental to the formation of all of them as later poets and later writers. So we can see it very much as interconnected.

[Lauren Good]

And of course, the other thing that.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We have, if we look at, for.

[Lauren Good]

Example, Charlotte Bronte's young writing, we can.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

See some of the tropes and the.

[Lauren Good]

Images and the scenes that she would.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Later adopt in her famous novels in things like Jane Eyre and Invalette.

[Lauren Good]

One of the tropes of Charlotte's later novels, for example, is that she likes to incorporate French.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But we can see Charlotte playing with.

[Lauren Good]

French, the French language, in her childhood.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Writing one of her small young men's.

[Lauren Good]

Magazines that she co creates with Bramwell and with Emily. And Anne has got what's called Journal.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Of a Frenchman in.

[Lauren Good]

And she's again moving between languages and created this whole world for these characters. And the characters all morph as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We see their development really strongly. So they're fundamental to their later works and to their creative imaginations.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

We know that Charlotte and the sisters would have learned a lot of this language when they studied in Brussels, where Charlotte fell in love with the married head of the school. What were the women's experiences at this time?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Charlotte and Emily go to Brussels in the early 1840s and they go there to perfect their language skills. Oddly, Charlotte Bronte, we know, implied to.

[Lauren Good]

Her French tutor Monsieur Heger, who ran.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The pension at Heger, he was one of the tutors there, that she later had some romantic feelings, certainly some admiration for.

[Lauren Good]

She kind of implies to him that she's not very good with French or with languages.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But that's actually not true because we can see it in her earlier writing.

[Lauren Good]

And we know that she was already reading French newspapers, she was already translating French.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But she goes there to perfect her language skill with Emily. And the intention is that they want.

[Lauren Good]

To set up a school together.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

There though they are pupils and they are not only perfecting their languages, but.

[Lauren Good]

Learning how to live away from home.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So they're trying to, I guess, find a way to bed themselves in. They don't particularly find that comfortable. We know that they don't make a huge amount of friends while they're there, but they go into church. But it's an exciting time for them. It's hampered that period by the fact.

[Lauren Good]

That their aunt dies. So their aunt Branwell, who had lived with them after their mother had died.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And had been a formative influence in their family. She dies when they're initially out in Brussels in 1842, and that causes Emily and Charlotte to come home.

[Lauren Good]

And the three sisters all inherit a very small amount of money. And Charlotte decides that she's going to go back to Belgium. She wants to perfect and continue with.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The development that she's been undertaken there. Emily decides to stay in Haworth. She doesn't want to go back to Belgium.

[Lauren Good]

So Charlotte returns alone.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And she is then spending time there, as I say, doing the things that she was doing, developing that language skills.

[Lauren Good]

But we've got her letters to Emily.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

From that time explaining the kind of things she gets up to. So we know, for example, that she sees Queen Victoria, there's a kind of street parade, and Charlotte writes back and.

[Lauren Good]

She describes her as very small.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So she's communicating all the time with her sister still about that exciting time. And I think it was incredibly informative and influential for her.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

And you mentioned there that the sister's got a small amount of inheritance. But these weren't very wealthy women and we know that they. They had to work in their earlier lives as governesses and teachers. How did they find this experience of working?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So, yeah, all of the sisters were.

[Lauren Good]

Teachers in one sense or another.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Anne Bronte, who is the youngest, Bronte, is probably the sibling that had the.

[Lauren Good]

Experience about governesson that we know the most about.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And that's partly because a lot of.

[Lauren Good]

What she writes found expression in her first novel, Agnes Gray. So Anne became a governess when she was about 19.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She accepted a position working for the Ingham family at Blake Hall. She spent nine months there and she found it incredibly difficult.

[Lauren Good]

She found the children to be spoiled.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

To be disobedient, and she wasn't allowed to control them in any way. She writes that experience later, as I said, in Agnes Grey, and at the.

[Lauren Good]

Beginning of that novel, you can see.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That Agnes has all these hopes to be a governess. She says, you know how delightful it.

[Lauren Good]

Would be to be a governess, how.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Wonderful it would be to go out.

[Lauren Good]

There and to do that good in the world.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But the reality of the situation is.

[Lauren Good]

That a governess was subservient to the family. You lived with that family, but you weren't part of that family.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You were an employee.

[Lauren Good]

Charlotte Bronte also had an experience as a governess.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She'd worked for the sidgwick family in 1839 and then at a place called Upperwood House in Rawdon in 1841.

[Lauren Good]

So just before she went off to Brussels.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And again, neither of those situations worked out for Charlotte.

[Lauren Good]

She also didn't like it. She felt she couldn't find herself, she couldn't be herself in that situation.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And she also felt that it just wasn't for her. Again, the difficulties with the children, the.

[Lauren Good]

Expectations being placed on the governess were.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Too much and it wasn't conducive for Charlotte as an experience. So both of those experiences, I guess for Anne and Charlotte are really important to their later novels. Of course, Jane Eyre is partly a governess and so of course is Agnes in Agnes Grey. Emily, though, was also briefly a teacher. So Emily worked at a school called Lawhill, which is just outside of Halifax.

[Lauren Good]

And Emily spent a small amount of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Time there in 1838 and she came.

[Lauren Good]

Home a few months later. Again, we don't know exactly why, we've.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Only got Charlotte's accounts for it, but.

[Lauren Good]

Charlotte's letters imply that Emily was working.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Really, really long hours, kind of 17, 18 hour days, and she was worried for Emily's health. And Emily gave it about five months and then decided that wasn't for her.

[Lauren Good]

And so then decided not to work for the rest of her life. And I guess because they'd had that inheritance, they could make choices about what.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They wanted to do.

[Lauren Good]

They needed some money, they needed an.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Income, but they were a little bit.

[Lauren Good]

More secure once they had that inheritance.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So Emily's life after that was being.

[Lauren Good]

In the domestic sphere.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She helped out with the cooking, with the cleaning, with all of the chores and write in, of course.

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[Clara O'Callaghan]

Emily did spend much of her time at Haworth, which suggests, you know, she was more of an introverted character. How much do we know of these women's personalities?

[Lauren Good]

So it's a really interesting question.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We don't have a huge amount left by Emily and Anne from them about.

[Lauren Good]

Themselves and about their views on the world and their feelings about life.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We've got their creative work, but we.

[Lauren Good]

Do have a lot from Charlotte Bronte.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And it's through Charlotte Bronte that we know the most about the siblings, their personalities, their bond with each other. So as you mentioned, Emily was probably the most introverted of all the three sisters. She's the one who's described by Elizabeth Gaskell in The life of Charlotte Bronte as reserv Deeply reserved. We know that she didn't have many friends, probably through shyness. In fact, they all dealt with chronic, debilitating shyness. But she was, like her sisters, a regular churchgoer. But she loved being out on the.

[Lauren Good]

Moors, so she was out walking the moors most of the time.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She's characterized, I think, her personality. People often think of her a little bit as a bit of a rebel, somehow kind of quite independent and fierce in her way.

[Lauren Good]

But we know that she was also homely. As I said, she wanted to stay in the domestic sphere. She was a baker.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She was a very talented musician.

[Lauren Good]

We know she was described as probably the most proficient pianist out of the three sisters. So there are wider aspects to her personality, but I suspect her love of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The outdoors and her connection with animals.

[Lauren Good]

Is what she's most known for.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And again, we've got small little papers that are called diary papers, where Emily's describing her day and the kind of things that she got up to.

[Lauren Good]

And very often in those, she'll refer to the animals or she'll draw the animals on these little bits of paper.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So you'll see dogs there, or she'll.

[Lauren Good]

Refer to the geese or the cat.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That'S in the parsonage that she's looking out for. Anne is the baby of the family.

[Lauren Good]

She was always described as poor gentle Ann.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Dear Anne. And again, she is often, and I think probably in a lot of biographies, infantilized. And certainly there is a sense that.

[Lauren Good]

She is seen as the quieter Bronte.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

To what extent that's true is difficult to discern because she was incredibly hardworking.

[Lauren Good]

She had the most sustained periods of employment outside of the family home of all the sisters.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But we also know she is incredibly religious. So Anne was a believer in a.

[Lauren Good]

Form of Christianity called universalism, or sometimes.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Known as universal salvation, which was the idea that human beings would be saved by God, whether they believed in God or not, essentially.

[Lauren Good]

And she uses her fiction to write very much about abuses in Victorian society. So she comes across as somebody who felt very, very strongly and passionate about.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Injust, but also about religious feeling. But again, with her sister Emily, and they were described as like twins. She's also accomplished as a musician in her own right.

[Lauren Good]

And then, of course, Charlotte is the one that we do know the most about.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Charlotte Bronte was incredibly serious and ambitious. We know that she wanted to be forever known as a literary author. I think we can see her ambition to be successful in things like the.

[Lauren Good]

Fact that she wanted to Set up the school with her sisters, the Ms. Bronte's establishment teaching.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She wanted to have independence and of.

[Lauren Good]

Course she turned down several marriage proposals. But she wanted to forge a career, a professional career.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

As I said, you know, she wasn't governessing, certainly wasn't for her.

[Lauren Good]

But she's also passionate and ambitious. We can see in terms of how she works as an editor of her sister's works and takes over the editorship of their childhood writing as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So she is kind of very much, I guess the driver out of all of them. And I guess she's got in a.

[Lauren Good]

Stereotypical way a reputation for being bossy.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But as I said earlier, we know they all had kind of almost pathological.

[Lauren Good]

Shyness, chronic shyness, debilitating.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They all felt deeply uncomfortable outside of the family unit. But within it they clearly had their own ways of being that they were far more comfortable with when they are.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

In this family unit. I think with hindsight, it's been very easy to romanticize the lives of these women scribbling away in this Moorside parsonage in Haworth. Do you think we romanticize their lives considering the tragedy and the difficulties that they've experienced? Too much.

[Lauren Good]

It's such an interesting question and one.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That'S really hard to answer because I guess it depends on what we mean by too much.

[Lauren Good]

Because the earliest biographies certainly, which is Elizabeth Gaskell's the Life of Charlotte Bronte.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You know, sought to put Charlotte Bronte on a pedestal and use the narrative.

[Lauren Good]

That'S co constructed by Charlotte of the.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Tragedy of her life, of all the things that she's had to overcome to.

[Lauren Good]

Give us insight to create her narrative of who she was. However, at the same time we do focus very much on the tragedies and the bad brother, the black sheep of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The family, to construct, I think a.

[Lauren Good]

Narrow conception of them that removes some of their humanity.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They almost become stereotypes where each of.

[Lauren Good]

The Brontes fits into a narrow idea that they almost have had a specific role.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And you.

[Lauren Good]

Yet as I said, when you move away the ideas of tragedy and romance.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You can see that they are doing very regular things. That they're baking, that they're playing music, that they are drawing, that they're enjoying.

[Lauren Good]

The creative worlds that they're creating individually.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And co creating together that they love being outdoors, you know, all very normal things.

[Lauren Good]

So it's complicated.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And I guess the other part of.

[Lauren Good]

The romanticizing too much to bear in.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Mind is undoubtedly their story is.

[Lauren Good]

Is tragic in every sense.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And I think that's one of the.

[Lauren Good]

Reasons that we're drawn to the Brontes because of the awfulness of losing their mother so young, losing their two older.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Siblings, and then kind of having this slightly odd upbringing that was atypical for its time. But at the same time, it's also.

[Lauren Good]

Within keeping historically with rates of mortality.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You know, and the kind of disease.

[Lauren Good]

The nature of disease at the time that people were dying all around them, that the average life expectancy in Haworth.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You were lucky to get past six years of age. And if you did, you'd roughly live to about 25.

[Lauren Good]

So it's a very different world.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And I think with the benefit of hindsight, or we forget that context.

[Lauren Good]

And so it seems even more tragic to us now, rather than perhaps understanding.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That the losses would have been kind.

[Lauren Good]

Of part and parcel of what was.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Going on in the community around them at the time.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

Of course, as you said, we are drawn to these women because of their lives, but the original reason is because of their writing. Let's delve into their work and start at the very beginning. The sisters first collectively published a book of poems. How were these original works actually received?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So in 1846, the sisters collectively, under.

[Lauren Good]

Their pseudonyms Curra Ellis and Acton Bell, publish a book called Poems by Curra.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Ellis and Acton Bell. And that book had come about largely because Charlotte Bronte had been rifling through her sister Emily's things stumbled on.

[Lauren Good]

Her sister's poems felt they had a.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Peculiar music, as she called them.

[Lauren Good]

And she said Anne's also had a.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Sweet pathos of their own. But together she felt that the combination of their work they could forge a.

[Lauren Good]

Really interesting poetry collection. And at that time, being a poet.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Was seen more prestigiously and it would.

[Lauren Good]

Have been more accessible.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But Poems by Curra Ellis and Acton.

[Lauren Good]

Bell is commercially a bit of a flop. It only sells a handful of copies.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So it doesn't do very well.

[Lauren Good]

It's reprinted later and Charlotte Bronte sends.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It to a number of people. But the initial reviews really are kind of mixed.

[Lauren Good]

They tend to focus in on Emily. Emily is the poet and Emily's voice, so Ellis Bell and how Ellis Bell comes across.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And they don't really pay a huge.

[Lauren Good]

Amount of attention to Anne or to Charlotte's, although there are a couple of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Reviewers that do acknowledge that Charlotte Bronte has some talent as a poet.

[Lauren Good]

So the road of being a poet.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Doesn'T really work out for the three sisters. And it's for that reason that they turn to writing novels. But I should also say that they aren't the first published poets in the family. Obviously their father was a writer and.

[Lauren Good]

A poet, but their brother Bramwell had.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Been publishing poetry since 1839. He'd been published in local newspapers in.

[Lauren Good]

Halifax and the surrounding areas.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So it would have been a natural progression for them to have been thinking about being poets first before attempting their hands at novels.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

And as you said, they went on to pitch these novels what works were first sent to publishers.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So the first books that were pitched.

[Lauren Good]

To publishers after the commercial flop, I.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Guess we might call it, of Poems by the Belles, Charlotte Bronte sent off the professor, which is the first novel that she wrote as an adult in long form. It's largely informed by her experiences in Brussels and she didn't really get a great response to it. And she was rejected nine times before.

[Lauren Good]

Receiving a moderate reply from Smith and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Elder, who went on to be her publishers, who said, if you've got anything.

[Lauren Good]

Else, we'd be happy to look at it.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But they clearly weren't interested in the Professor. So it's after that that Charlotte went.

[Lauren Good]

On to do a fast production of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Her next book, which becomes Jane Eyre, which is really, really exciting. But concurrent to Charlotte sending off the Professor, Emily and Anne Bronte were sending off Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell and Agnes Gray by Acton Bell to publishers and they have their book accepted for publication together. So those books are initially in a three volume piece. They're accepted by Thomas Courtley Newby and.

[Lauren Good]

Wutherin Heights takes up the first two.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Volumes of that book and Agnes Grey.

[Lauren Good]

Is the last first volume. What's interesting is the timing. Despite Charlotte going through the rejection process.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Of the professor and then finishing off Jane Eyre and sending it then off to Smith, Elder is all of those books effectively come out at the same time in 1847.

[Lauren Good]

So the Belles go from being poets.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

With individual contributions within a combined collection.

[Lauren Good]

To being novelists all at the same time. And the books then go on to.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Have the kind of successful life that.

[Lauren Good]

They'Ve had, but not without a series of interesting and complex reviews for all.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Of them that largely accuse them of being coarse and vulgar.

[Lauren Good]

And people wondering, who are these brothers.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

Essentially, Was there any suspicion surrounding these mysterious brothers?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Oh, absolutely.

[Lauren Good]

From the earliest reviews, people are questioning first and foremost who the Bell brothers.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Are, because they're new onto the literary scene effectively. But also people suspect that they might not be men. Early reviewers are questioning who would have.

[Lauren Good]

Been the kind of writer to produce.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

These materials and could it have been done by men or were they women? So you see, in some of those.

[Lauren Good]

Early reviews in the Victorian press, in newspapers and periodicals, that people are speculating.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That some of the nature of that work, particularly the romance elements of the work, the construction of male characters, reviewers were unsure that they could have been produced by men at all. So we have this kind of speculation going on about who they are in the media.

[Lauren Good]

And then people locally want to begin to ask questions about who are the Belles as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

What's.

[Lauren Good]

I guess part of the Bronte story.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Is because Emily and Anne die very, very quickly after their first novels published.

[Lauren Good]

Although Anne gets a second book out in the interim. The tenant of Martha hall is that.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Charlotte then writes a biographical notice that comes out very soon after.

[Lauren Good]

And in that she talks about those pseudonyms.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So very quickly, the discovery of the fact that they are three women, that.

[Lauren Good]

They are three sisters, comes to light.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It isn't something that's kept under wraps at all. But it's fascinating to look at the reviews and to see the speculation and the reasons why people were speculating on who the brothers were.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

And, of course, these novels have done very well and to the sisters sadly died after the publication of their first. Do you think they had any idea just how good their work was?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It's interesting. It's complicated, I think, in the case.

[Lauren Good]

Of Emily and Anne, for different reasons.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So with Emily, we don't know exactly what she thought of her books.

[Lauren Good]

We know that Charlotte read her some reviews when she was poorly.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And there's an interesting line in one of the letters where Charlotte's describing reading Emily some of the reviews. And the letter just reads, ellis Bell laughed, but what kind of laugh that was? If it was Emily laughing off her.

[Lauren Good]

Reviewers or if she was taking it to half and laughing with embarrassment, it's difficult to discern the tone.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And we know that after Emily dies, in her writing desks, they all had portable writing slopes, these beautiful boxes that. There are five reviews found for Wutherin.

[Lauren Good]

Heights in that desk. And they're all really critical reviews. So she obviously kept them. She knew that her book, Wutherin Heights, had had strong reactions to it. And some of those early reviews were.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Questioning the morality of the book, questioning the point of the book, questioning the nature of the author. As I said, people thought they were immoral.

[Lauren Good]

They couldn't understand the point of a.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Book like Wuthering Heights.

[Lauren Good]

So for Emily, she must have probably only understood that her book was received.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Very critically, which is terrible, given the life that it's gone on to have, you know, successive. Particularly today, it's constantly adapted.

[Lauren Good]

It's constantly on the stage.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It's in Aretha. It's given voice to so much.

[Lauren Good]

With Anne Bronte, Anne very quickly published.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

A second book, as I said, Agnes.

[Lauren Good]

Gray comes out with Wuthering Heights in this combined volume.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And then she quickly releases the year.

[Lauren Good]

A year later after that, the Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And in the Tenant of Wildfell hall, she includes a preface that's a response to her critics. And in that preface, which is reasonably short, but it's a really interesting piece of writing.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And it's interesting because it's Anne Bronte.

[Lauren Good]

Responding directly to these accusations of coarseness and vulgarity.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She talks about the need to make.

[Lauren Good]

An impact on the world.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She talks about her conviction that it's important to represent things in the light.

[Lauren Good]

That they are rather than try to dress them up. So she wants to show the complexities.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The abuses of the world and the.

[Lauren Good]

Injustices of the world.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And she also says that she wants to make an impact on her readers. So she wants to help young women and face some of the challenges that they face and also impact the behavior of young men.

[Lauren Good]

So with Anne Bronte, even though she.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Also would have been accused of kind.

[Lauren Good]

Of caused us some vulgarity and people.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Were uncertain about the Bell brothers, Anne was defiant in that preface to that.

[Lauren Good]

Other book, the second book that she.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Wrote, and you can see that she's persistent.

[Lauren Good]

Anyway, she's going to continue with what she believes her purpose is in writing books that are challenging Victorian social injustice.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

You know, you talked a little bit about the boxes. They had, these beautiful writing desks that they used, and they produced a massive amount of work, really, and very impressive work that we know has gone on to do very well. We've got a question on X that asks, do we know anything about their daily writing routines or the frameworks that they use to actually produce this incredible work?

[Lauren Good]

It's interesting because we can talk about.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Their kind of writing routines from when they were younger, as well as when they're adults.

[Lauren Good]

So we know that when they were.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Children, they would often have lessons in the morning, and then they would play.

[Lauren Good]

On the moors in the afternoon and in the afternoon. And when they're playing on the moors.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Together is when they're constructing these narratives.

[Lauren Good]

And they're writing them out, they're acting them out, they're playing them out, and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Then they would have gone and captured them.

[Lauren Good]

And you can see that they're doing.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

That across the year, across the summer periods. They're always out playing and acting as.

[Lauren Good]

Adults, though their routines are slightly Different.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And again, we've got glimpses of their routines from these little short pieces called diary papers, particularly written by Emily and Anne. But in short, we know that when they were at home, they would be.

[Lauren Good]

Helping out with the domestic, so doing the cooking.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

There's one brilliant diary paper where Anne and Emily are peeling potatoes and Emily's mocking the housekeeper with her Yorkshire accent and writing in dialect. And they're also peeling apples to make apple pie.

[Lauren Good]

And there's reference to Charlotte, Charlotte coming.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Into the room describing how she wrote apple pies better than the others. But we know that essentially when they're.

[Lauren Good]

Not doing the domestics again, they're out walking.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And that as adults, they would then write largely in the evening. And we know the sisters wrote together.

[Lauren Good]

By and large, in the dining room. There's the famous image that Gaskell creates.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

For us of them walking around the table, sharing and reading their works together. But it's important to remember that those.

[Lauren Good]

Writing desks were portable, so they could take them anywhere.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And it. It's highly possible that they took them outside as well. So, yeah, it would have been largely in the evening.

[Lauren Good]

Once all of their chores, all of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Their requirements for the day, all the.

[Lauren Good]

Things they needed to do had been.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Done that they would have been writing.

[Lauren Good]

But in terms of frameworks, they obviously shared and read their work together and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Got feedback informally from one another. And they were co creating characters at times.

[Lauren Good]

And I think we can see some.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Of that even in the novels today. So if you look at Weather in.

[Lauren Good]

Height and the Tenant of Whitefell hall, you can see synergies in even just the use of the WH on the letters.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

There's overlaps in character names, so I suspect they were fleshing out a lot of that.

[Lauren Good]

And we know that they reworked material as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So we know that some of their.

[Lauren Good]

Childhood writing they would take and they.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Would rework as adults.

[Lauren Good]

They would take out the imaginary worlds.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

They created and kind of make them more realist, so to speak.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

A lot of this work seems to be quite collaborative. And in the confines of the parsonage, the sisters do seem to be each other's social circle. We've got another question from Instagram that asks, what were the Bronte's relationships actually like as sisters? Were they ever jealous of each other's work?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It's complicated because they're obviously publishers writers together. And we know from Charlotte's posthumous writing of her sisters that she did some.

[Lauren Good]

Editorial work on their work. So she changed some of her sisters poetry.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Structurally, she would change and give it titles. So I don't get a sense that.

[Lauren Good]

There was any jealousy in particular. They were obviously working collaboratively together. But as sisters, in terms of a sisterly bond, we know that they are incredibly close.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We know that Emily and Anne, for.

[Lauren Good]

Example, they're described by their childhood friend. Ellen Nussey, who was Charlotte's best friend.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Essentially describes Emily and Anne as like twins. She said they were inseparable companions and.

[Lauren Good]

That they had the closest sympathy together.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And that would make sense in that they were closer in age perhaps.

[Lauren Good]

And they went on to write creatively. They co constructed this world of gondol together where they were creating characters and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Dramas and wars and all of these things together. And we know that when Anne struggled.

[Lauren Good]

With her health because she was a lifelong asthma sufferer, that Emily would kind.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Of support her with that. And Charlotte as a sibling, again, professionally.

[Lauren Good]

As a writer, she was closer to Bramwell at one point. And at some point she broke from.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Bramwell and kind of was a bit.

[Lauren Good]

More closer to her sisters. But they had again this close bond.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And I think it's really insightful when.

[Lauren Good]

We have the tragic period from 1847.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

1848, 1849, when there's a lot of sickness, a lot of ill health, and ultimately Emily and Anne die of tuberculosis.

[Lauren Good]

You really see the sibling bond come out.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

You see Charlotte Bronte's absolute adoration and.

[Lauren Good]

Love for her sister sisters.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She's writing letters explaining and updating people on their health.

[Lauren Good]

In Emily's case, she's writing to doctors and medics seeking advice.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She's writing of her conflicting feelings of wanting her sisters to be better, but they're both unwell. And also knowing that she can't do anything. There's very little that she can do.

[Lauren Good]

And when both of her sisters die, she's absolutely devastated.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And she writes poems in honor of.

[Lauren Good]

Both of her sisters. Again, they're largely forgotten pieces today. And then of course, she's left with.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The job of making decisions about what happens to their remaining work. So I think we can see just.

[Lauren Good]

From all of that, just this close.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Family bond, how connected they were.

[Lauren Good]

And they would have been connected from childhood, not just through their creative play.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But also through the fact that, you.

[Lauren Good]

Know, they'd lost older sisters as well and they'd lost their mums.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So that bond would have been there between them, that they were surviving together.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

The tragedy that this story does end with is so brutal. And as you said, it began in the year 1848. Before we do delve into this sequence of tragedy, can we talk first, about their complicated relationship with their brother Branwell. He's come up a little bit in this interview. What was he like as a person and what was his relationship like with the sisters?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Yeah, so Bramwell as the brother, as the only boy in the family, would.

[Lauren Good]

Have had a lot of expectations placed on him. So when their mum dies and when.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Their older sisters die and all of the children are essentially kept at home, Bramwell, as a young boy, under ordinary.

[Lauren Good]

Circumstances, would have been sent to school. And he's not, he's kept at home with his siblings. So they forge this very, very close bond. And that continues until, I guess, adulthood, when Bramwell begins to follow the path of what a young man is more expected to do. And he would have had the expectation.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Placed on him that once their father.

[Lauren Good]

Had died, he was responsible for their.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Sisters or his sisters.

[Lauren Good]

If his sisters weren't married, there's a lot of pressure on him. And he tries to be a success.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

At being a writer, being a painter.

[Lauren Good]

He works on the railway, he goes.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Off to be a tutor. And it all doesn't seem to work.

[Lauren Good]

Out for a whole range of complex.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Reasons, most of which are kind of.

[Lauren Good]

To do with poor decision making or circumstances that are out of his hands. And you can see, therefore, in the letters that survive across the, I guess, the 1840s, in particular, complex relationships with each of his siblings, particularly Bramwell and Charlotte. There is far more attention there. And again, you can even see that from the earliest writings, when Charlotte has broken away and decided that she wants to be in charge, she wants to be the editor, she wants to take control of the writing.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So Charlotte becomes quite disappointed, I think, with her brother, and particularly after the.

[Lauren Good]

Scandal around 1845, when he loses his.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Job for having romantic feelings in a.

[Lauren Good]

Relationship with the lady of the house, Lydia Robinson. Because we don't have a huge amount.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

From Emily and Anne about their brother Bramwell, we kind of have to piece an understanding of that relationship together. So we know that Emily looked after Branwell in different ways through ill health.

[Lauren Good]

It said that she used to help.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Him back from the pub in Haworth.

[Lauren Good]

When he was drinking. And Anne, of course, would have been part of the scandal when Branwell lost his job for having that relationship with the mistress of the house, and likely.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

According to conventions of the day, would have felt incredible shame as a result of that, such that she ultimately leaves the post as well. So by the time it gets to.

[Lauren Good]

That tragic period, there is a lot of tension, I think, in the household.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

More broadly, expectations, on Bramwell, who's also.

[Lauren Good]

Fiercely ambitious, who, as I've said, he.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Was a published writer.

[Lauren Good]

He was also writing his own novels and continued as a poet.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And his sisters were obviously doing their own things.

[Lauren Good]

You get a sense of a divide. Having said that, he is their brother, they do love him.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But I suspect as with many families, it's always complicated and particularly when you're from the outside looking in, it seems.

[Lauren Good]

Probably easier than it was on the inside.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

And sadly, his death In September of 1848 began this sequence of tragedy, didn't it?

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Yeah.

[Lauren Good]

So the tragedy that starts in that period is still shocking, I think for.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Us today to understand the kind of domino like effect. So Bramwell begins to get ill across that year, across 1848 and he dies in the September and his sisters bury him. And not long after that, in fact.

[Lauren Good]

Within about two, three weeks, there are signs of Emily getting unwell.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So Bramwell, his death certificate indicates that.

[Lauren Good]

He basically had a wasting disease.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And again it's probably with tuberculosis, it's unclear.

[Lauren Good]

But he also had problems and complications from alcohol abuse and opiate abuse as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So his body is incredibly weakened, as I said. Then Emily becomes ill. In the October she begins to show symptoms of tuberculosis. Emily's sickness is very, very short, but very aggressive.

[Lauren Good]

She only survives until 19 December.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It's clear from looking at the family letters that they all are aware that Emily's unwell and they're all already grieving.

[Lauren Good]

For Bramwell as well.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

By the time Emily dies in mid December, Anne Bronte has already begun showing.

[Lauren Good]

Symptoms as well of tuberculosis.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So it really is a domino effect.

[Lauren Good]

A doctor is called in to look.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

At Anne, to speak to Anne and assess her at home in the January.

[Lauren Good]

And she manages to survive until the May.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Charlotte Bronte of course is then left.

[Lauren Good]

So it's looking at Charlotte's writing across this period is really, really interesting and of course thinking about the fact that she was actually writing a novel throughout this whole period. So she had begun writing her second.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Book, Shirley in the April of 1848.

[Lauren Good]

And she'd put it aside once her success sisters and her brother became unwell and she only picks it up again after her sister Anne dies. So it's an incredibly painful period.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Tuberculosis again would have been incredibly common in its day, but it's incredibly aggressive in terms of how it takes out those three siblings. And for Charlotte Bronte, you know, she.

[Lauren Good]

Had lost her older two sisters when.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

She was a child at Cameron Bridge School and been brought home.

[Lauren Good]

She would see Elizabeth and Maria die. We know that she fictionalized that partly.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

In Jane Eyre, through Jane's relationship with Helen Burns.

[Lauren Good]

And so for her, this was another cycle of losing a series of siblings in close succession.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And it's. I think that's partly what we struggled.

[Lauren Good]

To get our head around today, is how she would have kept going through such tragic circumstances.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And particularly when we see that her letters are, you know, she's writing to.

[Lauren Good]

Doctors, she's begging to help from multiple.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Doctors for her sisters. And the state of Victorian medicine means that there's nothing they can really do.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

It is so heartbreaking and, as you said, almost unbelievable to imagine Charlotte's position in all of this. She did have a small portion, I suppose, of happiness after this absolute tragedy. She got married. How did this union actually come about?

[Lauren Good]

Yeah, she does have a period of happiness.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It's not necessarily happy to begin with.

[Lauren Good]

Arthur Bell Nicholls, who goes on to.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Be Charlotte's husband, was the curate for.

[Lauren Good]

Patrick Bronte, and he initially proposes to.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Charlotte in December 1852. She describes in a letter to her friend Ellen Nutty, that he knocked on the window of the parsonage.

[Lauren Good]

He comes in, he's shaken, he's nervous.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

His voice is incredibly low, and he.

[Lauren Good]

Discloses his feelings, his affection for Charlotte.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And says, you know, he hopes that.

[Lauren Good]

She will return him. And Charlotte's both surprised at how emotional he is. She got a sense that he admired.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Her, but not to that extent.

[Lauren Good]

But she turns him down. So she rejects him.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And he is so dejected by this that he vows to leave Haworth. And again in his last sermon there, he's described as shaking and slightly sobbing in the pulpit. But he and Charlotte stay in correspondence and ultimately he comes back to Haworth and he proposes again in 1853, when Charlotte's age, 37 years old, and this.

[Lauren Good]

Time she obviously feels slightly differently about him. There's a sense from the story that.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

It'S a growing admiration and a growing love, rather than a kind of, you know, starstruck love that's completely passionate and all consuming. I think it's something that grows, it's a slow, burning love. But she goes to her father. Her father's very happy about this, partly.

[Lauren Good]

Because the context of the day was it was breaking unwritten rules for the person that he's employing, that's his subordinate.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Essentially, to be lusting after his daughter. And so he's not happy about it.

[Lauren Good]

And he's not supportive of this.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But ultimately, Arthur and Charlotte, they do.

[Lauren Good]

Get married, and the wedding itself is incredibly low key. Charlotte has to be persuaded to get herself a dress, a white dress for the occasion.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But they're married at the church opposite the Haworth Parsonage. That's, that's there today. And they have a very, very brief reception and then they go off on their honeymoon and they go to Ireland. And I think that's really important, not only because their father's an Irishman, Arthur Bell Nicholls is an Irishman.

[Lauren Good]

He basically takes her back to where he's from.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So they go for a month in June 1854. And again we have Charlotte's letters from the time describing how happy she is. They're out walking, they're enjoying their time together and she's been shown around her husband's native country.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

But sadly, this happiness didn't last for long because Charlotte did die shortly after they got married. How did her life actually end?

[Lauren Good]

So Charlotte, yeah, she's married, as I said, in 1854 and she dies on 31st March, 1855.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

We know just before she dies that she goes through. Her and Arthur are happy. She describes of growing to love him.

[Lauren Good]

Her cause of death is cited as phthisis, as consumption.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So again as a form of tb. But there are conflicting views as to whether she was pregnant and whether she had chronic morning sickness, the kind that is debilitating and that was making her very ill.

[Lauren Good]

This is a point of contention because there's no evidence, there's no confirmation of.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

The fact that she was pregnant. The references in the letters that survived to her being sick imply that she acknowledged she had never felt that way before and that a servant basically says.

[Lauren Good]

Things will turn out okay and so does a doctor.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But the symptoms of early pregnancy can.

[Lauren Good]

Also double as some of the symptoms for tuberculosis.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So ultimately we don't know, we don't.

[Lauren Good]

Know if she was pregnant, but we.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Do know that she dies with her.

[Lauren Good]

Husband by her side in 1855.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And even though it is a short lived marriage, as I said, it is fueled with happiness.

[Lauren Good]

She enjoyed being a curate's wife, she enjoyed the change to her routine. And importantly, not only did she grow in affection for Arthur and clearly he was very good for her.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

He clearly loved her dearly. I mean, he'd come back and propose.

[Lauren Good]

In the face of rejection the first time round.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

But I think that union helped alleviate a lot of her sorrow and that.

[Lauren Good]

Loneliness that she felt having lost all her siblings.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So it does end in tragedy, but it also ends at a point that.

[Lauren Good]

She was happy in her own life.

[Clara O'Callaghan]

Finally, Claire, what do you think, or how do you like to think the Bronte's lives might have looked like if they hadn't have died so young.

[Lauren Good]

I think they definitely would have continued as writers. When Anne Bronte was sick, she talked.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

About having so much more to do.

[Lauren Good]

She had work to do. I think she wanted to continue writing.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

And the same for Emily.

[Lauren Good]

But I think it's likely she would.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Have continued writing because they were writers first and foremost.

[Lauren Good]

And we know from Charlotte's surviving papers that she had unfinished novels. They were the starts of fragments, that she was already working on new material.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

So I think Charlotte in particular, because Charlotte had made the decision to be.

[Lauren Good]

Married, that she would have found a.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Way to negotiate being a housewife and the wife of a religious figure and.

[Lauren Good]

Doing the work in a community that that would have necessitated with being a professional writer. And as I said, she was ambitious.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

I don't think she would have wanted to relinquish writing at all, but I also imagine she would have, again, within the confines of what was expected of Victorian women, would have probably wanted to be a mother and would have gone on to be a mother had the tragedy not happen. So it is really, really sad.

[Lauren Good]

They all had so much promise and.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

I think that ambition is partly what.

[Lauren Good]

Also inspires us today because it infectious. We can see that they were passionate about what they did and because we.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Know that their lives were brought to an end not only through kind of.

[Lauren Good]

Cruel diseases, but young relative for us.

[Expert on Bronte Sisters]

Today, that we can see that they would have had so much more to Give.

[Podcast Host]

That was Dr. Claire O'Callaghan, an expert on the Bronte sisters who has written and talked widely about different aspects of their work. You can read more on the bronte [e-mail] thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.