Free Republic

When we hear Brontë sisters, we think of Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë and we know them to be excellent writers from the 1800s whose works are read widely even today. However, there was another Brontë sister, not so well known, but equally talented and her erasure from popular history would be a disservice to literature. Anne Brontë was the youngest of the 6 Brontë siblings. There were 5 sisters and one brother born to Patrick Brontë and Maria Brontë, née Branwell. Anne never grew to know her mother, as she passed away when Anne was a year old. Anne...

The classic status of ‘Jane Eyre’ can obscure just how shocking its radical ideas were at the time. No one would be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth on April 21 were it not for her first and most famous novel, Jane Eyre, which has never been out of print since it was published in 1847 and is now a cornerstone of our literary culture. It’s easy to see how it got there. Brontë’s skilful telling of a Cinderella love story between a poor plain governess and her surly master has an irresistible power and many elements of...

It is hardly the most flattering of likenesses, but a pencil sketch of a woman's head has been identified as a rare self-portrait by Charlotte Brontë. It dates from 1843, four years before she was to publish Jane Eyre, one of English literature's great masterpieces, and when she was suffering the acute agony of unrequited love. The discovery has been made by the acclaimed literary biographer, Claire Harman, who describes it as 'massively significant' as there are only two other known lifetime portraits.