It’s natural to think of the Bronte sisters as being only Charlotte, Emily and Anne, as they are the ones we know most about and are always associated with their brother Branwell, and their books. But when Charlotte was born in 1816, she was the third of a family of six children. Her two elder sisters were Maria and Elizabeth.
Born in Thornton near Bradford, Charlotte and the rest of the family moved to Haworth in 1820 because Patrick Bronte had secured the post of perpetual curate at St Michael’s and All Angels Church in the village. Soon after arriving in Haworth, Maria Bronte (née Branwell) fell ill and subsequently died on September 15th, 1821. The death of Maria, left their father Patrick with six children to rear and a full-time post as curate to manage alongside his own grief. In August 1824, Charlotte and Emily, along with their two older sisters Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, Lancashire. In 1825, because conditions at the school were insanitary and following an outbreak of Typhus, Patrick brought his children home to the paronsage. Unfortunately, it was too late for Maria and Elizabeth and they both died shortly afterwards. Charlotte always maintained that, her slight build, short stature, poor eyesight, and recurring bouts of ill-health, were a direct consequence of the conditions at the school. I can only wonder at the extent to which those early experiences featured in her book, Jane Eyre.
At the age of nine Charlotte, in conjunction with her Aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, became guardian and mentor for the younger siblings. It was during this period of her life that Charlotte first took up writing and story-making. She also began writing poetry and creating plays.
At the age of fifteen in 1831, Charlotte was sent to Roe Head Boarding School in Mirfield. It was here that she met two other girls who became life-long friends and correspondents. The following year she left the school to return home to teach her sisters.
In 1835, Charlotte took up a teaching post at Roe Head and she remained there until 1838. Her time at the school was not happy and she immersed herself in her writing and completed Farewell to Angria in 1839. Between 1839 and 1841 Charlotte worked as a governess for a number of local families. I’m sure some of those experiences must have provided her with material for scenes in her later books, too.
In 1842, Charlotte accompanied her sister Emily to Brussels and the Pensionnat Héger, a boarding school run by Constantin Héger and his wife. Both sisters were scholars at the establishment. Although Héger (1809-1896) was a renowned professor and literary figure of that time, he is largely remembered now only for his relationship with Charlotte. Indeed, was he the individual who inspired the titular character in her later work, The Professor? Whilst he may have had a choleric temperament, he was a great influence on Charlotte’s writing. Her time in Brussels came to an end in October 1842. The sisters returned to the UK because their aunt had died.
In the following January, Charlotte travelled to Brussles alone to take up a teaching post at the pensionnat. That journey, which she found alarming, would later be recreated in her book, Villette. Her period working at the school was solitary, her interest in Constantin became obsessive and unrequited, and she missed her home in Yorkshire. Twelve months later, she was back in Howarth.
A brief period working with her sisters to create their own school proved unsuccessful and spurred Charlotte on to pursue her own writing career. In May 1846, and at Charlotte’s insistence, the sisters paid for a collection of poems to be published under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. It would seem that self-publishing is not solely the invention of the 21st century! The collection hardly sold at all, but Charlotte made sure that some prominent gentlemen-of-words of the time were presented with a copy. Later that same year, Charlotte submitted The Professor, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey to a publisher in London. Her sisters' stories were accepted, but Charlotte’s manuscript was rejected. Undeterred, Charlotte submitted Jane Eyre to a different publisher in August 1847. This novel was published shortly afterwards and became a success to such an extent that it is now considered to be a classic. In 1848, Charlotte began her third novel, Shirley. The work on this book was overshadowed by the illness and death of each of her three siblings over a nine-month period. Shirley was eventually published in October 1849 to a less-than-welcoming audience of readers. The book never achieved the status of Jane Eyre.
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| The sisters' workroom, Haworth |
As an appropriate postscript to a life dedicated to writing, The Professor was published posthumously in 1857. Charlotte left the beginnings of another novel when she died, and that unfinished manuscript, along with some of her earlier writings, has been completed and published.
… if you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in my posts on the life and works of M. R. James, Virginia Woolf, Rumer Godden, or A. A. Milne
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