Brontës Read online

  Juliet Barker is an internationally recognised expert on the Brontës and medieval chivalry. She was born in Yorkshire and has lived within a few miles of Haworth all her life. Educated at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School and St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she gained a doctorate in medieval history, she was curator and librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth from 1983 to 1989. Her revolutionary and prize-winning biography The Brontës was the result of eleven years’ research in archives throughout the world. Her ability to combine ground-breaking scholarly research with a highly readable and accessible style has made her a bestselling literary biographer and medieval historian: her Agincourt was the fourth bestselling history book of 2006. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bradford in 1999 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2001, she is married with two children, and still lives in Yorkshire.

  For more information, see her website, www.julietbarker.co.uk

  ‘An outstanding achievement, a magnificent portrait which not only contains a wealth of important material, but is also a delight to read … definitive … hard to imagine it ever being surpassed’ Rebecca Fraser, The Times

  ‘A monumental book: patient, thoughtful, sustained and bound to become indispensable’ Andrew Motion, TLS

  ‘A joy to read … The Brontës is a magnificent achievement: the finest biography I have read for years’ Susan Elkin, Literary Review

  ‘Quite simply the most astounding and revolutionary book about the Brontës ever written’ Yorkshire Post

  ‘A splendid account of the whole Brontë family … full of life and sparks’ Jane Gardam, Spectator

  ‘Ruthlessly meticulous revisionist history’ Hermione Lee, Sunday Times

  ‘Powerful … there can be no doubt about Juliet Barker’s contribution to Brontë scholarship’ Janet Barron, New Statesman

  ‘A contribution of enormous value to future generations’ Lucasta Miller, Independent

  ‘Magnificent’ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

  Also by Juliet Barker

  Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417–1450

  The Deafening Sound of Silent Tears:

  The Story of Caring For Life

  Agincourt: The King, The Campaign, The Battle

  Wordsworth: A Life in Letters

  Wordsworth: A Life

  The Brontës: A Life in Letters

  The Brontës: Selected Poems

  Charlotte Brontë: Juvenilia 1829–35

  The Tournament in England, c.1100–1400

  Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and

  Pageant in the Middle Ages

  THE

  BRONTËS

  Juliet Barker

  PEGASUS BOOKS

  NEW YORK LONDON

  For James

  Edward and Sophie

  CONTENTS

  Preface to the second edition

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Maps of Haworth and Vicinity

  1

  An Ambitious Man

  2

  The Promised Land

  3

  Good Neighbours and Kind Friends

  4

  A Stranger in a Strange Land

  5

  Charity-Children

  6

  Scribblemania

  7

  Emulation Rewarded

  8

  Angrians Arise!

  9

  The Infernal World

  10

  Losing Battles

  11

  Slavery

  12

  Patrick Boanerges

  13

  A Wish for Wings

  14

  Isolated in the Midst of Numbers

  15

  Monsieur Heger

  16

  Mrs Robinson

  17

  The Book of Rhymes

  18

  Three Tales

  19

  The Shadow in the House

  20

  Stripped and Bereaved

  21

  No Longer Invisible

  22

  The Society of Clever People

  23

  Running Away From Home

  24

  Villette

  25

  Tomkins Triumphant

  26

  So Happy

  27

  Saintliness, Treason and Plot

  28

  The End of All

  List of Illustrations

  Abbreviations

  Notes

  Index

  PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

  A new edition of The Brontës is long overdue. It was a revolutionary book when it was first published in 1994 and since then it has become the standard biography of this extraordinary family. Despite this, popular myths about the Brontës have proved astonishingly difficult to quash. It was therefore important to me not only that my biography should remain in print but also that it should be revised and updated so that it could not be undermined by failing to take into account the huge advances in Brontë studies which have taken place since 1994.

  Two monumental works of meticulous scholarship deserve especial mention: Margaret Smith’s The Letters of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1995–2004) and Victor Neufeldt’s The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë (New York, 1997–9) provide indispensable tools for the biographer, collecting, re-dating and transcribing manuscripts scattered throughout public and private collections in Great Britain and the United States. I wish they had been available when I was struggling to date Charlotte’s letters or assemble a coherent narrative from the morass of Branwell’s juvenilia. Sue Lonoff s The Belgian Essays: Charlotte and Emily Brontë (New Haven and London, 1996) and Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars’s The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge, 1995) have also broken new ground in publishing material previously only available to researchers in archives. Derek Roper’s The Poems of Emily Brontë (Oxford, 1995), Heather Glen’s Charlotte Brontë: Tales of Angria (London, 2006) and Dudley Green’s The Letters of the Reverend Patrick Brontë (Stroud, 2005) all provide useful and accessible editions of the Brontës’ writings. For the convenience of all readers, new and old, I have changed all my references to these new editions and (occasionally) accepted their new readings.

  Much less original material has surfaced since 1994 but this includes important new evidence showing that two of Charlotte’s drawings were accepted for a public exhibition in Leeds in 1834 and, conversely, proving that Branwell did not attend the Royal Academy in 1835 and that a variety of alternative careers had been considered for him. Charlotte’s letter describing her wedding dress is a particularly delightful new find, there are piquant details in the Bishop of Ripon’s description of his hostess at Haworth Parsonage in 1853 and a touching letter to the same bishop from the newly bereaved Patrick, who had just lost his sixth and last child. Additional information, particularly about Haworth and the locality in the Brontë era, has emerged and I am grateful, in particular, to Steven Wood, Robin Greenwood and Ian and Catherine Emberson for their corrections and assistance. I am also indebted to members of the Brontë Parsonage Museum staff, particularly Sarah Laycock, Polly Salter and Sean Killian, who have all gone out of their way to assist me in preparing this new edition. Finally, I would like to thank my publishers, Little, Brown, for giving The Brontës a new lease of life.

  Juliet Barker

  February 2010

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Throughout the many years it has taken to complete this book I have naturally incurred many debts. First and foremost amongst these is to my immediate family, my parents, husband and children, who have suffered endlessly (but not always in silence) because of my obsession. Without their practical assista
nce, encouragement and forbearance, this biography could never have been written. Secondly, I owe a debt I can never repay to Ian Beck, consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician, who saw me through the worst year of my existence. His quite exceptional kindness, good humour and medical skill saved my sanity and my health; his goddaughter, Sophie Jane, owes her life to him. Thirdly, though it is invidious to single out only some of those who have helped me with my research, I would like to make a special mention of Margaret Smith, who read through my entire manuscript and, with her meticulous eye for detail, saved me from an embarrassing number of errors. She also pinpointed the locations of many Brontë manuscript holdings which I would not have otherwise found. Sue Lonoff of Harvard University, Professor Victor Neufeldt of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and Rebecca Fraser all gave extensive assistance and much moral support. Special mention is also due to Diana Chardin of Trinity College, Cambridge, for letting me know about her discovery of transcripts of Branwell’s letters and to Eileen Maughan of the Cumbria Record Office, Barrow-in-Furness, for undertaking research on my behalf in an effort to identify Branwell’s illegitimate child.

  I am grateful to the staff and governing bodies of the following institutions for assisting me in my research and giving me permission to quote from manuscripts in their care: Beinecke Library, Yale University; Berg Collection, New York Public Library; Birmingham University Library; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York; Boston Public Library, Massachusetts; British Library and British Newspaper Library; British and Foreign Bible Society; British Museum’s Central Archives; Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth; Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds; Brown University Library, Rhode Island; Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, New York; Cambridge University Library; Casterton School, Kirkby Lonsdale; Church of England Record Centre; Church Missionary Society; Church Pastoral Aid Society; Columbia University, New York; Cumbria Record Office, Barrow-in-Furness; Cumbria Record Office, Kendal; Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, California; Essex Record Office; Fales Library, New York University; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania; Guildhall Library, London; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Houghton Library, Harvard University; Huntington Library, San Merino; John Murray (Publishers) Ltd; John Rylands University Library of Manchester; King’s School, Canterbury; Knox College, Illinois; Law Society, London; Leeds City Museum; Leicestershire Record Office; The Library, Morrab Gardens, Penzance; Library and Museum of the United Grand Lodge of England; Maine Historical Society; Manchester Public Library; Margaret Clapp Library, Wellesley College, Massachusetts; National Archive; National Library of Scotland; Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Princeton University; Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford; Robinson Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia; Royal Academy of Arts, London; St John’s College, Cambridge; Shropshire Record Office; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Staffordshire Record Office; State University of New York at Buffalo; Trinity College Library, Cambridge; Trinity College Library, Dublin; United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; University College, Durham; University Library, Durham; University Library, Sheffield; University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; University of Kentucky, Lexington; University of Rochester, Rochester, New York; West Yorkshire Archive Service at Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds and Wakefield; Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, Whitby; Woodhouse Grove School, Bradford; Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere.

  I would also like to give particular thanks to those individuals fortunate enough to possess Brontë material and generous enough to allow me to use it: Roger Barrett; Alan Gill; Lynda Glading; the late Lady Graham, Norton Conyers; Sarah Greenwood; Arthur Hartley; Angelina F. Light; Barbara Malone; A. I. F. Parmeter; William Self; June Ward-Harrison. Thanks, too, to Joan Coleridge for permission to quote from Hartley Coleridge’s draft letter to Branwell Brontë. Gratitude is also due to the following people who went out of their way to assist me: Dr Alan Betteridge, WYAS, Halifax; Peter Dyson, Braintree; Donald Hathaway, Newton Abbot; Canon S. M. Hind, Kirk Smeaton; G. I. Holloway, Headmaster of the Grammar School, Appleby; Professor Ian Jack, Cambridge University; Professor R. D. S. Jack, University of Edinburgh; Marjorie McCrea, All Saints’ Parish Church, Wellington, Shropshire; Mrs Rita Norman, Secretary of the Wethersfield Historical Group; Dr Ray Refaussé, Representative Church Body Library, Dublin; Revd William Seale of Drumgooland Parish, County Down; Revd John Shead, Priest in Charge, Wethersfield; Dr Katherine Webb, York Health Authority. Not forgetting Mrs Chris Swift for her kindness to a total stranger: without her I might still be wandering round the streets of Wellington.

  I would particularly like to thank the Revd Colin Spivey who kindly lent me photocopies of the Haworth church registers and the late Eunice Skirrow whose enthusiasm for and knowledge of Haworth were an inspiration. Among the staff of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, I am also grateful to Margery Raistrick, Kathryn White and Ann Dinsdale. Allegra Huston, my editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, has been endlessly patient and supportive and made many helpful suggestions. Finally, I acknowledge my debt to all the many enthusiasts who read in the library while I was Curator and Librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum: they interested, informed and infuriated me and they are ultimately responsible for prompting me to write this book.

  FOREWORD

  The now famous Brontë name was spelt and accented in a variety of ways in the family’s lifetime. Though I have adopted a standard ‘Brontë’ throughout my own text, I have followed whatever appears in my sources when using quotations, even when this includes no accent on the final letter. Similarly, because I believe that the policy of ‘correcting’ the Brontës’ often wildly ill-spelt and ungrammatical writings gives a false impression of their sophistication, particularly in the juvenilia, I have chosen to transcribe my quotations from the original manuscripts ‘warts and all’. Authorial deletions are indicated by <> and insertions by /; although I have tried to let the Brontës speak for themselves, whenever the sense has absolutely demanded it I have made editorial insertions in square brackets thus [ ].

  INTRODUCTION

  Yet another biography of the Brontës requires an apology, or at least an explanation. Their lives have been written so many times that there ought to be nothing left to say. Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, published within two years of her subject’s death, set a new standard in literary biography and is still widely read. In more recent times, Winifred Gérin and Rebecca Fraser have added considerably to our knowledge by publishing material which was not available to, or was suppressed by, Mrs Gaskell. The Brontës’ lives and works have been taken apart and reassembled according to theories of varying degrees of sanity by literally hundreds of other biographers and literary critics.

  What is surprising is that, despite so much activity, the basic ideas about the Brontës’ lives have remained unchanged. Charlotte is portrayed as the long-suffering victim of duty, subordinating her career as a writer to the demands of her selfish and autocratic father; Emily is the wild child of genius, deeply misanthropic yet full of compassion for her errant brother; Anne is the quiet, conventional one who, lacking her sisters’ rebellious spirit, conforms to the demands of society and religion. The men in their lives have suffered an even worse fate, blamed first of all by Mrs Gaskell, and since then by feminists, for holding the Brontë sisters back from achieving literary success and even, at times, for simply existing. Patrick is universally depicted as cold, austere and remote, yet given to uncontrollable rages, alternately neglecting and tyrannizing his children. Branwell is a selfish braggart, subordinating his sisters’ lives to his own by right of his masculinity, and negating the value of this sacrifice by squandering his talent and the family’s money on drink and drugs. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who cannot be p
ortrayed as either mad or bad, is simply dull.

  These stereotypes have been reinforced by the practice of writing separate biographies for each member of the family. Yet the most remarkable thing about the Brontës is that one family produced three, if not four, talented writers, and it is the fact that they were such an extraordinarily close family that is the key to their achievements. Taking one of them out of context creates the sort of imbalance and distortion of facts that has added considerably to the Brontë legend. A love poem by Anne, for instance, can be interpreted as autobiographical – unless one is aware that Emily was writing on the same subject at the same time in a Gondal setting. Though many have tried, it is impossible to write an authoritative biography of either of the two youngest Brontë sisters. The known facts of their lives could be written on a single sheet of paper; their letters, diary papers and drawings would not fill two dozen. Understandably but, I believe, misguidedly, biographers have fallen back on literary criticism to fill the void. Trawling through the Brontës’ fiction in search of some deeply hidden autobiographical truth is a subjective and almost invariably pointless exercise.

  In this biography I have deliberately chosen to write about the whole Brontë family, hoping that this will redress the balance and enable the reader to see the Brontës as they lived, not in isolation, but as a tightly knit group. I am well aware that some members of the household are more prominent than others. Aunt Branwell and Tabby Aykroyd, despite my best endeavours, remain mere ciphers. Regrettably, Emily and Anne are also shadowy figures. This is the inevitable result of lack of biographical information but it is, I think, preferable to fanciful interpretation of their fiction. Virginia Moore’s misreading of’Love’s Farewell’ as ‘Louis Parensell’, resulting in an elaborate theory about Emily’s secret lover, is a dire warning as to where such a method can lead.

  The Brontë story has always been riddled with myths. Charlotte herself started the process in an attempt to explain why her sisters had written novels which had both shocked and titillated the literary critics. Mrs Gaskell ably extended this argument to Charlotte herself, producing in her Life of Charlotte Brontë a persuasive and powerful polemic which has never been seriously challenged. Instead of being writers of’naughty books’, who revelled in vulgarity and brutality, the Brontës thus became graduates of the school of adversity, writing in all innocence about the barbarous society in which they lived because that was all they knew. Their work took on a new, moral quality: that of Truth. However distasteful Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights or The Tenant of Wildfell Hallmight be, they were simply an accurate representation of provincial life. A bizarre offshoot of this argument is the belief that every one of the Brontës’ fictional creations must have had its counterpart in reality. The search for originals of the places, characters and incidents in the Brontës’ novels is as fanatical as it is irrelevant. Similarly, by a peculiar inversion of the normal process, literalists argue the facts of the Brontës’ lives from their fiction, which they persist in regarding as autobiographical. It is not surprising that the myths survive.