thumb|upright=1.15|Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë, by their brother Branwell (c. 1834). He painted himself among his sisters, but later removed it so as not to clutter the picture.The Brontës () were a 19th century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (born 21 April 1816), Emily (born 30 July 1818), and Anne (born 17 January 1820), are well known as a trio of sibling poets and novelists. They originally published their poems and novels under masculine pseudonyms, following the custom of the times practised by female writers. Their stories immediately attracted attention, although not always the best, for their passion and originality. Charlotte's ''Jane Eyre'' was the first to know success, while Emily's ''Wuthering Heights'', Anne's ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' and other works were later to be accepted as masterpieces of literature.

The three sisters and their brother, Branwell, were very close and they developed their childhood imaginations through the collaborative writing of increasingly complex stories. The confrontation with the deaths, first of their mother, then of the two older sisters, marked them profoundly and influenced their writing.

Their fame was due much to their own tragic destinies as well as their precociousness. Since their early deaths, and then the death of their father in 1861, they were subject to a following that did not cease to grow. Their home, the parsonage at Haworth in Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum has become a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

Origin of the name

The Brontë family can be traced to the Irish clan ''Ó Pronntaigh'', which literally means 'grandson of Pronntach'. They were a family of hereditary scribes and literary men in Fermanagh. The version Ó Proinntigh, which was first given by Father Woulfe in his ''Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall'' (Surnames of the Gael and the Foreigner) and reproduced without question by MacLysaght ''inter alia'' cannot be accepted as correct, as there were a number of well-known scribes with this name writing in Irish in the 17th and 18th centuries and all of them used the spelling Ó Pronntaigh. The name is derived from the word ''pronntach'' or ''bronntach'', which is related to the word ''bronnadh'', meaning giving or bestowal (''pronn'' is given as an Ulster version of ''bronn'' in O'Reilly's Irish English Dictionary.) Father Woulfe suggested that it derives from ''proinnteach'' (a refectory of a monastery). ''Ó Pronntaigh'' was earlier anglicised as ''Prunty'' and sometimes ''Brunty''. At some point, the father of the sisters, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), decided on the alternate spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal ''e'' to indicate that the name has two syllables. It is not known for certain what motivated him to do so, and multiple theories exist to account for the change. He may have wished to hide his humble origins. As a man of letters, he would have been familiar with classical Greek and may have chosen the name after the cyclops Brontes (literally 'thunder'). Unrelated Bronte families are found in Sicily. The name indicates their origin from the town of Bronte. In 1799 King Ferdinand IV of Naples bestowed the honour of ''Duke of Bronte'' on Lord Nelson for fighting off the French Navy.

Members of the Brontë family

Patrick Brontë

Patrick Brontë (17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861), was born in County Down, Ireland, of a very poor family of farm workers. He became the Anglican curate of the parish of Haworth, and was a poet, writer, and polemicist. He was an Anglican priest of Irish extraction, born on St Patrick's Day 17 March 1777. He is the author of ''Cottage Poems'' (1811), ''The Rural Minstrel'' (1814), numerous pamphlets and newspaper articles, and various rural poems. He had several apprenticeships until he became a teacher and moved to Cambridge where he studied theology, general subjects, and ancient and modern history. Having obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, he was ordained on 10 August 1806. In 1812, he met and married 29 year old Maria Branwell and by 1820 had moved into the parsonage at Haworth where he took up the post of ''Perpetual curate''. They had six children. On the death of his wife in 1821 his sister in law, Elizabeth Branwell, came to help him bring up the children. Open, intelligent, generous, and personally taking care of their education, he bought all the books and toys the children asked for and accorded them great freedom, but embittered their lives due to his eccentric habits and peculiar theories of education.

After several attempts to seek a new spouse, Patrick came to terms with widowhood at the age of 47, and spent his time visiting the sick and the poor, giving sermons, communion, and extreme unction, leaving the three sisters Emily, Charlotte, Anne, and their brother Branwell alone with their aunt and a maid, Tabitha Aykroyd (Tabby), who tirelessly recounted local legends in her Yorkshire dialect while preparing the meals. He survived his entire family, and six years after Charlotte's death he died at the age of 84. To the end he was helped by his son-in-law, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls.

Maria, née Branwell

Patrick's wife Maria Brontë, née Branwell, (15 April 1783 – 15 September 1821), originated from Penzance, Cornwall and came from a comfortably well off middle class family. Her father had a flourishing tea and grocery store and had accumulated considerable wealth. Maria died at the age of 38, probably from cancer of the stomach. She married the same day as her younger sister Charlotte, in the church at Guiseley, after her fiancé had celebrated the union of two other couples. She was known for her lively spirit, joyfulness and tenderness, and it was she who designed the samplers that are on display in the museum, and had them embroidered by her children. She left memories with her husband and with Charlotte, the oldest surviving sibling, of a very vivacious woman at the parsonage. The younger ones, particularly Emily and Anne, admitted to retaining only vague images of their mother, especially of her suffering in her sickbed.

Elizabeth Branwell

Elizabeth Branwell (2 December 1776 – 29 October 1842) arrived from Penzance in 1821, after the death of Maria, her younger sister, to help Patrick look after the children, and was known as 'Aunt Branwell'.

The children

Patrick and Maria Brontë had six offspring:

Maria, the first of the Brontë children, was born in Clough House, High Town on 23 April 1814, and died at the age of eleven in Haworth on 6 May 1825. She suffered hunger, cold, and privation at Cowan Bridge School, as well as the tyranny of the older pupils and the mantras of the teachers on being damned to eternity and the flames of Hell (''fire and brimstone''). She returned with an advanced case of tuberculosis. Charlotte, especially, describes her as very lively, very sensitive, and particularly advanced in her reading and in her leisure.

Elizabeth (1815–1825), the second child, joined her sister Maria at Cowan Bridge where she suffered the same fate. Elizabeth was less vivacious than her brother and her sisters, and apparently less advanced for her age. However, her premature death could not foretell what her future would have been, had she been able to cultivate the intellectual and studious passions of her family. She died on 15 June 1825 within two weeks of returning home to her father.

Charlotte, born in Thornton near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire on 21 April 1816, was a poet and novelist and is the author of ''Jane Eyre'', her best known work, and three other novels. She died on 31 March 1855 just before reaching the age of 39.

Patrick Branwell was born in Thornton on 26 June 1817. Known as ''Branwell'', he was a painter, writer and casual worker. He became addicted to alcohol and laudanum and died at Haworth on 24 September 1848 at the age of 31.

Emily Jane, born in Thornton, 30 July 1818, was a poet and novelist. She died in Haworth on 19 December 1848 at the age of 30. ''Wuthering Heights'' was her only novel.

Anne, born in Thornton on 17 January 1820, was a poet and novelist who died at the age of 29. She wrote a largely autobiographical novel entitled ''Agnes Grey''. Her second novel, ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' (1848) was far more ambitious. She died on 28 May 1849 in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire.

Education

Cowan Bridge School

In 1824, the four eldest girls (excluding Anne) entered Cowan Bridge School, which educated the children of less fortunate members of the clergy, and which had been recommended to Mr Brontë. The following year, Maria and Elizabeth fell gravely ill and were removed from the school, but died shortly afterwards within a few weeks of each other on 6 May and 15 June 1825. Charlotte and Emily were also withdrawn and returned to Haworth. The loss of their sisters was a trauma that showed in Charlotte's writing. In ''Jane Eyre'', Cowan Bridge becomes Lowood, the pathetic figure of Maria is represented by the character of the young Helen Burns, the cruelty of the mistress Miss Andrews by that of Miss Scatcherd, and the tyranny of the headmaster, the Rev. Carus Wilson, by that of Mr Brocklehurst.

Tuberculosis, which afflicted Maria and Elizabeth in 1825, was the eventual cause of death of the surviving Brontës: Branwell in September 1848, Emily in December 1848, Anne eight months later in May 1849, and finally Charlotte in 1855.

Miss Wooler's school

In 1831, 14-year-old Charlotte was enrolled at the school of Miss Wooler in Roe Head, Mirfield. Patrick could have sent his daughter to a less costly school in Keighley nearer home but Miss Wooler and her sisters had a good reputation and he remembered the building which he passed when strolling around the parishes of Kirklees, Dewsbury, and Hartshead-cum-Clifton where he was vicar. Margaret Wooler showed fondness towards the sisters and she accompanied Charlotte to the altar at her marriage. Patrick's choice of school was excellent – Charlotte was happy there and studied well. She made many lifelong friends, in particular the calm and dignified Ellen Nussey and the more fanciful Mary Taylor who later went to New Zealand before returning to England. Charlotte returned from Roe Head in June 1832, missing her friends, but happy to rejoin her family.

Three years later, Miss Wooler offered her former pupil a position as her assistant. The family decided that Emily would accompany her to pursue studies that would otherwise have been unaffordable. Emily's fees were partly covered by Charlotte's salary. Emily was 17 and it was the first time she had left Haworth since leaving Cowan Bridge. On 29 July 1835, the sisters left for Roe Green. The same day, Branwell wrote a letter to the Royal Academy of Art in London, to present several of his drawings as part of his candidature as a probationary student.

Charlotte taught, without being particularly kind to the students she described in her notes, as she would later do in Brussels with even more sarcasm. Emily did not settle and after three months she seemed to decline and had to be taken home to the parsonage. Anne took her place and stayed until Christmas 1837.

Charlotte avoided boredom by following the development of ''Angria'' which she received in letters from her brother. During holidays at Haworth, she wrote long chapters while being reproached by her father who wanted her to become more involved in parish affairs. These were coming to a head over the imposition of the Church rates, a local tax levied on parishes where the majority of the population were dissenters. In the meantime, Miss Wooler moved to Heald's House, at Dewsbury Moor, where Charlotte complained about humidity that made her unwell. She left the establishment in 1838 after receiving ''The Vision of Don Roderick and Rokeby'', a collection of poems by Walter Scott, as a leaving present from Miss Wooler.

Literary evolution

The children became interested in writing novels from an early age, initially as a game which later matured into a passion. Although they all displayed a talent for narrative, it was the younger ones whose pastime it became to develop them. At the centre of the children's creativity were twelve wooden soldiers which Patrick Brontë gave to Branwell at the beginning of June 1826. These toy soldiers instantly fired their imaginations and they spoke of them as ''the little men'', and gave them names. However, it was not until December 1827 that their ideas took written form, and the novel ''Glass Town'', set in London, Paris, and Babylonia, came into existence, followed by the fictional kingdoms of ''Gondal'', ruled by a woman, created by Emily and Anne, after the departure of Charlotte in 1831, and ''Angria''. These stories were written in several hundred ''little books'', the size of a matchbox, , and cursorily bound with thread. The pages were filled with close, minute writing, often in capital letters without punctuation and embellished with illustrations, detailed maps, schemes, landscapes, and plans of buildings, created by the children according to their specialisations. The complexity of the stories matured as the children's imaginations developed, fed by reading the three weekly or monthly magazines to which their father had subscribed, or the newspapers that were bought daily from John Greenwood's local news and stationery store.

Literary and artistic influence

These fictional worlds were the product of fertile imagination fed by reading, discussion, and a passion for literature. Far from suffering from the negative influences that never left them and which were reflected in the works of their later, more mature years, the Brontë children absorbed them with open arms. The children's symbiosis ensured that these influences were mutual and even if they had not all read the same authors, their lively discussions guaranteed that each one was kept up to date with every new cultural contribution. The family possessed a virtual library, not one on shelves, for most of the books were borrowed, but one in the form of the notes they took and the items they kept in memory. It was easy to ask for information or for a reference or even a citation. Someone always knew the answer, and they asked each other without fear of creating confusion.

The press

The periodicals that Patrick Brontë subscribed to were a mine of information for his children. The ''Leeds Intelligencer'', ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'', conservative and well written, but better than the ''Quarterly Review'' that defended the same political ideas whilst addressing a less refined readership, (the reason why Mr Brontë did not read it); were exploited in every detail, and ''Blackwood's Magazine'' in particular, was not only the source of their knowledge of world affairs, but a map of Africa published in it in July 1831, interested them immediately because it confirmed their world of ''Glass Town'' which they had situated in West Africa. Their knowledge of geography was completed by Goldsmith's ''Grammar of General Geography'' of which there was a copy at the parsonage.

Lord Byron

The Brontë children rapidly diverged from the Manichean form of these stories to a more Byronic style where heroes who have a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit demonstrate arrogance and even black-heartedness. Again, it is in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' in August 1825 that they discover Byron, who died the previous year, for the first time. From this moment, the name Byron became synonymous with all the prohibitions and audacities as if it had stirred up the very essence of the rise of those forbidden things. Branwell and Charlotte thus pushed Zamorna, one of the heroes of the Verdopolis, towards an increasingly ambiguous behaviour, and the same influence and evolution recur with Emily Brontë, especially in the characters of Heathcliff in ''Wuthering Heights'', and Mr. Rochester in ''Jane Eyre'', who display the traits of a Byronic hero. Numerous other works have left their mark on the Brontës; namely the ''Thousand and One Nights'' for example, which inspired Jinn in which they became themselves in the centre of their kingdoms, while adding a touch of exoticism.

John Martin

The children's imagination was also influenced by three prints of engravings in mezzotint by John Martin around 1820. Charlotte and Branwell made copies of the prints ''Belshazzar's Feast'', ''Déluge'', and ''Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon'' (1816), which hung on the walls of the parsonage.

Martin's fantastic architecture is reflected in ''Glass Town'' and ''Angria'', where he appears himself among Branwell's ''Juvenilia'' and under the name of Edward de Lisle, the greatest painter and portraitist of ''Verdopolis'', the capital of ''Glass Town''. One of Sir Edward de Lisle's major works, ''Les Quatre Genii en Conseil'', is inspired by Martin's illustration for John Milton's ''Paradise Lost''. Together with Byron, John Martin seems to have been one of the artistic influences essential to the Brontës' universe.

Anne's morals and realism

The influence revealed by ''Agnes Grey'' and ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' is much less clear. Anne's works are largely founded on her experience as a governess and on that of her brother's decline. Furthermore, they demonstrate her conviction, a legacy from her father, that books should provide moral education. This sense of moral duty and the need to record it, are more evident in ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'', written after the death of Branwell. The influence of the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Gregory "Monk" Lewis and Charles Maturin is noticeable, and that of Walter Scott too, if only because the heroine, abandoned and left alone, resists not only by her almost supernatural talents, but mainly due to the power drawn from her temperament.

Other influence

''Jane Eyre'', ''Agnes Grey'', then ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'', ''Shirley'', ''Villette'' and even ''The Professor'' present a linear structure concerning a character who advances through life after several trials and tribulations, to find a kind of happiness in love and virtue, recalling the works of religious inspiration of the 17th century such as John Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress'' or his ''Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners''. In a more profane manner, the hero or the heroine follows a picaresque itinerary such as in Miguel de Cervantes (1547–16), Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), Henry Fielding (1707–1764) and Tobias Smollett (1721–1771). This lively tradition continued into the 19th century with the ''from rags to riches'' genre that have illustrated almost all the grand Victorian romancers. The protagonist is thrown by fate into poverty and after many difficulties, achieves a golden happiness. Often an artifice is employed to effect the passage from one state to another such as an unexpected inheritance, a miraculous gift, grand reunions, etc. and in a sense, it is the route followed by Charlotte's and Anne's protagonists, even if the riches they won were more ones of the heart than ones of the wallet. Apart from its Gothic elements, ''Wuthering Heights'' moves like a Greek tragedy and possesses its music, the cosmic dimensions of the epics of John Milton, and the power of the Shakespearian theatre. One can hear the echoes of ''King Lear'' as well as the completely different characters of ''Romeo and Juliet''. The Brontë were also seduced by the writings of Walter Scott, and in 1834 Charlotte exclaimed, "For fiction, read Walter Scott and only him – all novels after his are without value."

Governesses, and Charlotte's idea

An alternative: governess or school mistress

thumb|right|upright=1.25| The life of a woman such as could be imagined in the Anglo-Saxon world around 1840. The Brontës hardly had any contact with the local population outside the circle of intimate family friends, and the quest was for what a woman could do who is not rich, but who nevertheless does not belong to the working class, but is dedicated to the work in the fields and to become a servant. Through the influence their father and their own intellectual curiosity, they were able to benefit from an education that placed them among knowledgeable people, but Mr Brontë's emoluments were modest. The only options open to the girls were either that of an honest marriage, even if it had to be one of convenience – a solution they wished to avoid, or a choice between the professions of school mistress or governess. After their failed attempt to found a school, they felt obliged to find positions in families educating often rebellious young children, or to seek employment as school teachers. The possibility of becoming a paid companion to a rich and solitary woman would have been a fall-back role, and with which she would be bored listless. Janet Todd's ''Mary Wollstonecraft, a revolutionary life'' mentions the predicament, and none of the Brontë girls seems to have considered a similar eventuality.

Alone, Emily never became a governess, and her only professional experience would be an experiment in teaching during six months of exile which she could not stand, in the school of Miss Patchett at Law Hill near Halifax. In contrast, Charlotte had teaching positions in the school of Miss Margaret Wooler, and in Brussels with the Hegers. She became governess to the Sidgwicks, the Stonegappes, and the Lotherdales where she worked for several months in 1839, then with Mrs White, at Upperhouse House, Rawdon, from March to September 1841. Anne became a governess and worked for Mrs Ingham, at Blake Hall, Mirfield from April to December 1839, then for Mrs Robinson at Thorp Green Hall, Little Ouseburn, near York, where she also obtained employment for her brother in an attempt to stabilise him; an exercise which however, turned into a disaster.

Forced to become governesses

The family's finances did not flourish, and Aunt Branwell spent the money with caution. Emily had a visceral need of her home and the countryside that surrounded it, and to leave it would cause her to languish and wither. Charlotte and Anne, being more realistic, did not hesitate in finding work and from April 1839 to December 1841 the two sisters had several posts as governess. Not staying long with each family, their employment would last just several months or the length of one season. However, Anne did stay with the Robinsons in Thorp Green where things went well, from May 1840 to June 1845. In the meantime, Charlotte had an idea that would place all the advantages on her side. On advice from her father and friends, she thought that she and her sisters had the intellectual capacity to create a school for young girls in the parsonage where their Sunday School classes took place. It was agreed to propose the future pupils the opportunity of correctly learning living languages, and that this should be prepared in situ, which led to a further decision. Among the possibilities Paris and Lille were considered, but were rejected due to aversion to the French. Indeed, the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars had not been forgotten by the Tory spirited and deeply conservative girls. On the recommendation of a pastor based in Brussels, who wanted to be of help, Belgium was chosen, where they could also study German, and music.

School project and study trip to Brussels

Role of Elizabeth Branwell

Elizabeth Branwell, who raised the children after the death of their mother, was a Methodist. It seems, nevertheless, that her denomination did not exert any influence on the children. It was ''Aunt Branwell'' who taught the children arithmetic, the alphabet, how to sew, embroidery and cross-stitching appropriate for ladies. Aunt Branwell also gave them books and subscribed to ''Fraser's Magazine'', less interesting than ''Blackwood's'', but, nevertheless, providing plenty of material for discussion.thumb|left|upright=0.8|200px|Portrait of James Sheridan Knowles, in ''Fraser's Magazine'' 1838 She was a generous person who dedicated her life to her nieces and nephew, neither wanting to marry nor to return to visit her relations in Cornwall, and she provided the funds for the project in Brussels.

Charlotte's and Emily's journey to Brussels

Emily and Charlotte arrived in Brussels in February 1842 accompanied by their father. Once there, they enrolled at Monsieur and Madame Heger's boarding school in the Rue d'Isabelle, for six months. Claire Heger was the second wife of Constantin, and it was she who founded and directed the school while Constantin had the responsibility for the higher French classes. According to Miss Wheelwright, a former pupil, he had the intellect of a genius. He was passionate about his auditorium, demanding many lectures, perspectives, and structured analyses. He was also a good-looking man with regular features, bushy hair, very black whiskers, and wore an excited expression while sounding forth on great authors about whom he invited his students to make a pastiche on general or philosophical themes.

The lessons, especially those of Constantin Heger, were very much appreciated by Charlotte, and the two sisters showed exceptional intelligence, although Emily hardly liked her teacher and was somewhat rebellious.

Return and recall

The death of their aunt in October of the same year forced them to return once more to Haworth. Aunt Branwell had left all her worldly goods in equal shares to her nieces and Eliza Kingston, a cousin in Penzance, which had the immediate effect of purging all their debts and providing a small reserve of funds. Nevertheless, they were asked to return to Brussels as they were regarded as being competent and were needed. They were each offered teaching posts in the boarding school, still English for Charlotte and music for Emily. However, Charlotte returned alone to Belgium in January 1843, while Emily remained critical of Monsieur Heger, in spite of the excellent opinion he held of her. He later stated that she 'had the spirit of a man', and would probably become a great traveller due to her being gifted with a superior faculty of reason that allowed her to deduce ancient knowledge of new spheres of knowledge, and her unbending willpower would have triumphed over all obstacles.

Vexed, Charlotte returns

Almost a year to the day, enamoured already for some time of Monsieur Heger, Charlotte resigned and returned to Haworth. Her life there had not been without suffering, and on one occasion she ventured into the cathedral and entered a confessional. She may have had intention of converting to Catholicism, but it would only have been for a short time.

Life at Haworth became more difficult after she had left. Mr Brontë lost his sight although his cataract had nevertheless been operated on with success in Manchester, and it was there in August 1846, when Charlotte arrived at his bedside that she began to write ''Jane Eyre'', while her brother Branwell fell into a rapid decline punctuated by dramas, drunkenness, and delirium. Due partly to Branwell's poor reputation, the school project failed and was abandoned.

Charlotte wrote four long, very personal, and sometimes vague letters to Monsieur Héger, that never received replies. The extent of Charlotte Brontë's feelings for Heger were not fully realised until 1913, when her letters to him were published for the first time. Heger had first shown them to Mrs. Gaskell when she visited him in 1856 while researching her biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', but she concealed their true significance. These letters, referred to as the 'Heger Letters', had been ripped up at some stage by Heger, but his wife had retrieved the pieces from the wastepaper bin and had meticulously glued or sewn them back together. Paul Heger, Constantin's son, and his sisters, gave these letters to the British Museum, and they were shortly after printed in ''The Times'' newspaper.

The Brontë sisters' literary career

First publication : ''Poems'', by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell

The writing that had begun so early never left the family. Charlotte had the ambition like her brother (though Branwell was kept at a distance from her project) and wrote to the poet laureate Robert Southey to submit several poems of his style; she received an hardly encouraging reply after several months. Southey, still illustrious although his star has somewhat waned, was one of the great figures of English Romanticism, with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and shared the prejudice of the times: literature was considered a man's business, and not an appropriate occupation for ladies.

However, Charlotte did not allow herself to be discouraged. Furthermore, coincidence came to her aid. One day in autumn 1845 while she was alone in the dining room she noticed a small notebook lying open on in the drawer of Emily's portable writing desk and ''of my sister Emily's handwriting''. She read it and was dazzled by the beauty of the poems that she did not know. The discovery of this treasure was what she recalled five years later, and according to Juliet Barker, she erased the excitement that she had felt, ''more than surprise […], a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had a peculiar music – wild, melancholy, and elevating.'' In the following paragraph Charlotte describes her sister's indignant reaction at her having ventured into such an intimate realm with impunity. It took Emily hours to calm down and days to be convinced to publish the poems. Charlotte envisaged a joint publication by the three sisters. Anne was easily won over to the project, and the work was shared, compared, and edited. Once the manuscripts had been chosen, nineteen for Charlotte and twenty-one each for Anne and Emily, Charlotte went about searching for a publisher. She took advice from William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, directors of one of their favourite magazines, ''Chambers's Edinburgh Journal''. It is thought, although no documents exist to support the claim, that they advised the girls to contact Aylott & Jones, a small publishing house at 8, Paternoster Row, London, who accepted but rather at the authors' own risk as they felt the commercial risk to the company was too great. The work thus appeared in 1846 under the masculine pseudonyms of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell. These were very uncommon forenames but the initials of each of the sisters were preserved and the patronym could have been inspired by that of the vicar of the parish, Arthur Bell Nicholls. It was in fact on 18 May 1845 that he took up his duties at Haworth, at the moment when the publication project was well advanced.

The book attracted hardly any attention. Only three copies were sold of which one was purchased by Fredrick Enoch, a resident of Cornmarket, Warwick, who in admiration, wrote to the publisher to request an autograph – the only extant single document carrying the three author's signatures in their pseudonyms, and they continued creating their prose, each one producing a book a year later. The three girls always worked in secret, unceasingly discussing their writing for hours at the dinner table, after which their father would open the door at 9 p. m. with ''Don't stay up late, Girls''!, then rewinding the clock and taking the stairs to his room upstairs.

Fame

1847, a bountiful year

Charlotte's ''Jane Eyre'', Emily's ''Wuthering Heights'', and Anne's ''Agnes Grey'', appeared in 1847 after many tribulations, again for reasons of finding a publisher. The packets containing the manuscripts often returned to the parsonage and Charlotte simply added a new address and did this at least a dozen times during the year. The first one was finally published by Smith, Elder & Co in London, of which the 23-year-old owner George Smith had been specialised until then in publishing scientific revues aided by his perspicatious reader, William Smith Williams and remained faithful to the family. Those of Emily and Anne were confided to Thomas Cautley Newby who intended to compile a ''three-decker'', more economical for sale and for loan in the ''circulating libraries'' the two first volumes to include ''Wuthering Heights'' and the third one ''Agnes Grey''. Both the novels attracted critical acclaim, occasionally harsh about ''Wuthering Heights'', praised for the originality of the subject and its narrative style, but viewed with suspect because of its outrageous violence and immorality – surely, the critics wrote, a work of a man with a depraved mind – fairly neutral about ''Agnes Grey'', more flattering in spite of certain commentators denouncing it as an affront to morals and good mores, for ''Jane Eyre'' which soon became what would be called today a best-seller.

''Jane Eyre'' and the end of anonymity

The anonymous (Currer Bell) publication in 1847 of ''Jane Eyre, An Autobiography'', established a dazzling reputation for Charlotte. In July 1848, Charlotte and Anne (Emily had refused to go along with them) travelled by train to London to prove to Smith, Elder & Co that each sister was indeed an independent author, for Thomas Cautley Newby, the publisher of ''Wuthering Heights'' and ''Agnes Grey'', had launched a rumour that the three novels were the work of one author, understood to be Ellis Bell (Emily). George Smith was extremely surprised to find two gawky, ill-dressed country girls paralysed with fear, who, to identify themselves, held out the letters addressed to ''Messrs. Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell''. Taken by such surprise, he introduced them to his mother with all the dignity their talent merited, and invited them to the opera for a performance of Rossini's ''Barber of Seville''.

The powerful winds of ''Wuthering Heights''

Emily Brontë's, ''Wuthering Heights'', was published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonym Ellis Bell, by Thomas Cautley Newby, in two companion volumes to that of Anne's (Acton Bell), ''Agnes Grey''. Controversial from the start of its release, its originality, its subject, narrative style, and troubled action raised intrigue. Certain critics condemned it, but sales were nevertheless considerable for a novel from an unknown author and which defied all conventions.

It is a work of black Romanticism; covering three generations isolated in the cold or the spring of the countryside with two opposing elements: the dignified manor of ''Thrushcross Grange'' and the rambling dilapidated pile of ''Wuthering Heights''. The main characters, swept by tumults of the earth, the skies, and the hearts, are strange and often possessed of unheard of violence and deprivations. The story is told in a scholarly fashion, with two narrators, the traveller and tenant Lockwood, and the housekeeper/governess, Nelly Dean, with two sections in the first person, one direct, one cloaked, which overlap each other with digressions and sub-plots that form, from apparently scattered fragments, a coherently locked unit.

1848, Anne's second novel

One year before her death in May 1849, Anne published a second novel. Far more ambitious than her previous novel, ''The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall'' was, like ''Agnes Grey'', a simple but tormented slice-of-life story about a young governess faced with a morgue of great earthly bourgeois, and is based on her own personal experience, though indirectly this time for it concerned the decline of her brother Branwell.

The master theme is the alcoholism of a man who causes the downfall of his family. Helen Graham, the central character, gets married for love to Arthur Huntingdon, whom she soon discovers to be lecherous, violent, and alcoholic. She is forced to break with the conventions that keep her in the family home that has become hell, and to leave with her child to seek secret refuge in the old house of Wildfell Hall. When the alcohol causes the final demise of her husband, she returns to care for him in total abnegation until his death.

Charlotte Brontë

The struggle: denunciation of boarding schools (''Jane Eyre'')

Conditions at the school at Cowan Bridge, where Maria and Elizabeth may have contracted the tuberculosis from which they died, were probably no worse than those at many other schools of the time. (For example, several decades prior to the Brontë sisters' experience at Cowan Bridge, Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra contracted typhus at a similar boarding school, and Jane nearly died. The Austen sisters' education, like that of the Brontë sisters, was continued at home.) Nevertheless, Charlotte blamed Cowan Bridge for her sisters' deaths, especially its poor medical care – chiefly, repeated emetics and blood-lettings – and the negligence of the school's doctor – who was the director's brother-in-law. Charlotte's vivid memories of the privations at Cowan Bridge were poured into her depiction of Lowood School in ''Jane Eyre'': the scanty and at times spoiled food, the lack of heating and adequate clothing, the periodic epidemics of illness such as ''low fever'' (probably typhus), the severity and arbitrariness of the punishments, and even the harshness of particular teachers (a Miss Andrews who taught at Cowan Bridge is thought to have been Charlotte's model for Miss Scatcherd in ''Jane Eyre''). While Elizabeth Gaskell, a personal friend and the first biographer of Charlotte, confirmed that Cowan Bridge was Charlotte's model for Lowood and insisted that conditions there in Charlotte's day were egregious, more recent biographers have argued that the food, clothing, heating, medical care, discipline, etc. at Cowan Bridge were not considered sub-standard for religious schools of the time. One scholar has even commended Patrick Brontë for his perspicacity in removing all his daughters from the school, a few weeks before the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.

Literary encounters

Following the overwhelming success of ''Jane Eyre'', Charlotte was pressured by George Smith, her publisher, to travel to London, and later Edinburgh, to meet her public. Despite the extreme timidity that paralysed her among strangers and made her almost incapable of expressing herself, Charlotte consented to be lionised, and in London was introduced to other great writers of the era, including Harriet Martineau and William Makepeace Thackeray, both of whom befriended her. Charlotte especially admired Thackeray, whose portrait, given to her by Smith, still hangs in the dining room at Haworth parsonage. thumb|rightupright=1.0|Interior of The Crystal Palace'', during the 1851 Great Exhibition On one occasion Thackeray apparently introduced Charlotte to his mother during a public gathering as ''Jane Eyre'' and when Charlotte called on him the next day, received an extended dressing-down, in which Smith had to intervene.

During her trip to London in 1851 she visited the Great Exhibition and The Crystal Palace. In 1849 she published ''Shirley'' and in 1853 ''Villette''.

Marriage and death

The Brontë sisters were highly amused by the behaviour of the curates they met. Arthur Bell Nicholls (1818–1906) had been curate of Haworth for seven and a half years, when contrary to all expectations, and to the fury of Patrick Brontë, he proposed to Charlotte. Although impressed by his dignity and deep voice, as well as by his near complete emotional collapse when she rejected him, she found him rigid, conventional, and rather narrow-minded 'like all the curates' – as she wrote to Ellen Nussey. After she declined his proposal Nichols, pursued by the anger of Patrick Brontë, left his functions for several months. However, little by little her feelings evolved and after slowly convincing her father, she finally married Nichols on 29 June 1854.

On return from their honeymoon in Ireland where she had been introduced to Mr. Nicholls' aunt and cousins, her life completely changed. She adopted her new duties as a wife that took up most of her time, she wrote to her friends telling them that Nicholls was a good and attentive husband, but that she nevertheless felt a kind of holy terror at her new situation. In a letter to Ellen Nussey (Nell), in 1854 she wrote ''Indeed-indeed-Nell-it is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife''.

The following year she died aged 39. The cause of death given at the time was tuberculosis, but it may have been complicated with typhoid fever (the water at Haworth being likely contaminated due to poor sanitation and the vast cemetery that surrounded the church and the parsonage) and her pregnancy that was in its early stage.

The first biography of Charlotte was written by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell at the request of Patrick Brontë, and published in 1857, helping to create the myth of a family of condemned genius, living in a painful and romantic solitude. After having stayed at Haworth several times and having accommodated Charlotte in Plymouth Grove, Manchester, and become her friend and confidant, Mrs Gaskell had certainly had the advantage of knowing the family well.

Novels

''Jane Eyre : An Autobiography'' (1847).

''Shirley'' (1849).

''Villette'' (1853)

''The Professor'' (1857)

Unfinished fragments

These are outlines or unedited roughcasts which with the exception of ''Emma'' have been recently published.

''Ashford'', written between 1840 and 1841, where certain characters from Angria are transported to Yorkshire and are included in a realistic plot.

''Willie Ellin'', started after ''Shirley'' and ''Villette'', and on which Charlotte worked relatively little in May and July 1853, is a story in three poorly linked parts in which the plot at this stage remains rather vague.

''The Moores'' is an outline for two short chapters with two characters, the bothers Robert Moore, a dominator, and John Henry Moore, an intellectual fanatic.

''Emma'', already published in 1840 with an introduction from Thackeray. This brilliant fragment would doubtlessly have become a novel of similar scope to her previous ones.

''The Green Dwarf'' published in 2003. This story was probably inspired by ''The Black Dwarf'' by Walter Scott of whose novels Charlotte was a fan. The novel is a fictional history about a war that breaks out between Verdopolis (the capital of the confederation of ''Glass Town'') and Senegal.

Branwell Brontë

Patrick Branwell Brontë, (1817–1848), was considered by his father and his sisters to be a genius. On the other hand, the book by Daphne du Maurier (1986), ''The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë'', contains numerous references to his addiction to alcohol and laudanum. He was an intelligent boy with many talents and interested in many subjects especially literature. He was often the driving force in the construction of the imaginary worlds. He was artistic and encouraged by his father to pursue this.

Whilst trying to make a name as an artist, he left for London but in several days used up the allowance provided by his father in cafés of ill repute. His attempts to obtain low paid work failed, and very quickly he foundered in alcohol and laudanum and was unable to regain his stability.

Anne Brontë obtained employment for him in January 1843, but nearly three years later he was dismissed. In September 1848 after several years of decline he died from tuberculosis. On his death, his father tearfully repeated 'My brilliant boy', while the clear headed and totally loyal Emily, wrote that his condition had been 'hopeless'.

Branwell is the author of ''Juvenilia'', which he wrote as a child with his sister Charlotte, ''Glass Town'' and ''Angria'', poems, pieces of prose and verse under the pseudonym of Northangerland, such as ''Real Rest'' published by the ''Halifax Guardian'' on 8 November 1846 from several articles accepted by local newspapers and from an unfinished novel probably from around 1845 entitled ''And the Weary are at Rest''.

Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) has been called the ''Sphynx of Literature'', writing without the slightest desire for fame, and only for her own satisfaction. She was obsessively timid outside the family circle to the point of turning her back on her partners in conversation without saying a word.

With a single novel, ''Wuthering Heights'' and poems of an elementary power, she reached the heights of literature. Almost unknown during her life, posterity classes her as 'top level' in the literary canon of English literature.

Above all, Emily loved to wander about the wild landscape of the moors around Haworth. In September 1848 her health began to decline rapidly. Consumptive, but refusing all treatment, with the exception of a visit from a London doctor – because although it was already too late, her relatives insisted – she died in December on the sofa in the dining room. It is possible that she left an unfinished manuscript which was burned by Charlotte to avoid such controversy as followed the publication of ''Wuthering Heights''. Several documents exist that allude to the possibility, although no proof corroborating this suggestion has ever been found.

Emily Brontë's poems

Emily's poems were probably written to be inserted in the saga of ''Gondal'', with which she identified herself with several of the characters right into her adulthood. At the age of 28 she still acted out scenes from the little books with Anne while travelling on the train to York. ''Remembrance'' was one of the 21 of Emily's poems that were chosen for the 1846 joint publication before which, Emily had deleted all references to ''Gondal''.

Anne Brontë

Anne was considered to be the least talented of the sisters. Thus, ''The Short Oxford History of English Literature'' writes that her first novel was overshadowed by those of Charlotte and Emily and that the narrator endures humiliation, snobbism, and incivility from her employers with a firm resolution helped along by her sense of duty and high moral conscience. The chronicle, sprinkled with Anne's own experiences, is the basis of ''Agnes Grey'' which appears to be a semi-autobiographical novel.

Anne's health began to decline rapidly, like that of her brother and sister some months earlier. On 5 April 1849, she wrote to Ellen Nussey asking her to accompany her to Scarborough on the east coast. Anne hoped that the sea air would improve her health, as recommended by the doctor, and Charlotte finally agreed to go.

On the Sunday morning she felt weaker and asked if she could be taken back to Haworth. The doctor confirmed that she was near to death and Anne thanked him for his candour. "Take courage, take courage" she murmured to Charlotte. She died at 2 pm on Monday 18 May. She is buried in the cemetery of St Mary's of Scarborough. Her gravestone carries an error in her age in the inscription because she died at the age of 29 and not at 28. It was noticed by Charlotte during her only visit, and she had the intention of asking the mason to correct it. Ill health did not leave him time to effect the repair and the tombstone has remained in the same state to this day.

Northern England at the time of the Brontës

In her 1857 biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', Mrs Gaskell begins with two explanatory and descriptive chapters. The first one covers the wild countryside of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the little village of Haworth, the parsonage and the church surrounded by its vast cemetery perched on the top of a hill. The second chapter presents an overview of the social, sanitary, and economic conditions of the region. The following works up to the most recent: ''The Brontës'' by Juliet Barker (1994) : bound volume, 1995, :occupy a large place in these elements which in several ways have contributed to mould and create in them the extraordinary characters which they became.

Social, sanitary, and economic conditions in Haworth

The death toll within the Brontë family was not unusual and left little impression on the village population who were confronted with death on a daily basis. When Patrick Brontë arrived, the parish suffered from unemployment. The men sought work in the quarries and local handicrafts. The only businesses were the pharmacy which supplied Branwell, and John Greenwood's stationery store in which the Brontës were the best customers.

Haworth's population grew rapidly during the first half of the 18th century, from hardly 1,000 to 3,365 in 50 years. The village did not have a sewage system and the well water was contaminated by faecal matter and the decomposition of bodies in the cemetery on the hill top. Life expectancy was less than 25 years and infant mortality was around 41% of children under six months of age. Most of the population lived from working the poorly fertile land of the moors, and supplemented their incomes with work done at home such as spinning and weaving wool from the sheep that were farmed on the moors. and the textile industry, already present since the end of the 17th century, grew in the mills on the banks of the River Worth, whose waters turned the wheels which consequently required fewer people to work them.

Food was scarce, often little more than porridge, resulting in vitamin deficiencies. Public hygiene was non-existent and lavatories were basic. The facilities at the parsonage were no more than a plank across a hole in a hut at the rear, with a lower plank for the children. In her thirties, Charlotte was described as having a toothless jaw, by such persons as Mrs Gaskell, who stated in a letter dated 25 August 1850 to Catherine Winkworth : […] large mouth and many teeth gone […]. However, food was reasonable in the family. Well filled plates of porridge in the morning and piles of potatoes were peeled each day in the kitchen while Tabby told stories about her country or Emily revised her German grammar, and sometimes Mr Brontë would return home from his tours of the village with game donated by the parishioners.

The role of the woman

According to Robert Southey, poet laureate, in his response to Charlotte, ladies from a good background should be content with an education and a marriage embellished with some decorative talents. Mr Brontë also said to one of the characters in his ''The Maid of Kilarney'', without one knowing whether it truly reflected a widespread opinion in order to support it or to condemn it: ''The education of female ought, most assuredly, to be competent, in order that she might enjoy herself, and be a fit companion for man. But, believe me, lovely, delicate and sprightly woman, is not formed by nature, to pore over the musty pages of Grecian and Roman literature, or to plod through the windings of Mathematical Problems, nor has Providence assigned for her sphere of action, either the cabinet or the field. Her ''forte'' is softness, tenderness and grace'', in any case, it seemed to contradict his attitude towards his daughters whom he encouraged even if he was not completely aware of what they did with their time.

Education of young girls of humble situation

The question arose regarding the education of girls of barely middle class when they did not dispose of either significant connections or adequate funds to send them to established upper class schools. A solution was the schools where the fees were reduced to a minimum – so called charities – with a mission to come to the aid of families such as those of the lower clergy. One cannot accuse Mr. Brontë of not having done everything possible to find what he thought would be most appropriate for his daughters. As Barker comments, he had read in the ''Leeds Intelligencer'' of 6 November 1823, the reports judged by the ''Court of Commons'' in Bowes, and others judged on 24 November 1824 near Richmond, two towns in the county of Yorkshire, where pupils had been discovered gnawed by rats, and suffering from malnutrition to the extent that some of them had lost their sight. Nothing was to suggest that Reverend Carus Wilson's ''Clergy Daughters' School'' of not being able to respond to his expectations. The school was not particularly cheap and its patrons (honorary members) were all respected people including the daughter of Mrs. Hannah Moore, an author of recognised works and a close friend of the eminent poet William Cowper, both proponents of a correct education for young girls, and the offspring of different prelates and even certain acquaintances of Patrick including William Wilberforce who had successfully completed their education at ''St. John's'', thus he believed to be surrounded by all the necessary guarantees.

The Brontë sisters' place in literature

Due to their forced or voluntary isolation, the Brontë sisters constituted a separate literary group which neither had predecessors nor successors. There is not a 'Brontë' line such as exists among authors of realist and naturalist novels, and in poetry, the romantic, and the symbolic.

Their influence certainly existed but it is difficult to define in its totality. Writers who followed them doubtlessly thought about them while they were creating their dark and tormented worlds such as Thomas Hardy in ''Jude the Obscure'' or ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'', or George Eliot with ''Adam Bede'' and ''The Mill on the Floss''. There were also more conventional authors such as Matthew Arnold, who in a letter from 1853, says of Charlotte, that she only pretends to heartless: '[…] nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage'. In contrast, Mrs Humphry Ward, author of ''Robert Elsmere'' and morality novels, only finds didactic among the works of Charlotte, while she appreciates the happy blend of romance and realism in the works of Emily. There is however nothing that could constitute a literary vein.

Pilgrimages to Haworth from 1860

By 1860 Charlotte had been dead for five years and the only people living at the parsonage were Mr Brontë, his son-in-law, Arthur Bell Nicholls, and two servants. In 1857 Mrs Gaskell's biography of Charlotte was published and though Mr Brontë at its first reading approved of its commissioning, several months later he expressed doubts. The portrait of Nicholls, founded partly on the confidence of Ellen Nussey, seemed to him to be unjustified. Ellen Nussey, who hated Arthur, insists that his marital claims had perverted Charlotte's writing and that she had to struggle against an interruption of her career. It is true that Arthur found Nussey to be too close to his wife and he insisted that she should destroy her letters – although this never actually happened. Mrs Gaskell's book caused a sensation and was distributed nationwide. The polemic launched by the father resulted in a squabble that only served to increase the family's fame.

During Charlotte's lifetime friends, and sponsors visited the parsonage, including Sir James and Lady Kay Shuttleworth, Ellen Nussey, Elizabeth Gaskell, John Store Smith a young writer from Manchester, Bessie Parkes who recounted her visit to Mrs Gaskell, and Abraham Holroyd, poet, antiquarian, and historian. However, following the publication of the book and the pastor's public remonstrations, the parsonage became a place of pilgrimage for admirers wanting to see it with their own eyes. Charlotte's husband recalled that he had to protect his father-in-law, when on the short path to the church they had to push their way through the crowds of people wanting to reach out and touch the cape of the father of the Brontë girls. The hundreds of visitors became thousands, coming from all over Britain and even from across the Atlantic. Whenever he agreed to meet them, Patrick received them with utmost courtesy and recounted the story of his brilliant daughters, never omitting to express his displeasure at the opinions held about Charlotte's husband.

The flow of visitors has never abated. Indeed, the parsonage at Haworth is one of the most visited places in the world.

The Brontë Society

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is managed and maintained by the ''Brontë Society'' which organises exhibitions, and takes care of the cultural heritage represented by objects and documents which belonged to the family. The society has branches in Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the Scandinavian countries, and France.

The Brontë phenomenon

In 1904, Virginia Woolf visited Haworth and published an account in ''The Guardian'' on 21 December. She remarked on the symbiosis between the village and the Brontë sisters, the fact that utensils and clothes which would normally have disappeared before those who used them, have survived, enables one to better understand their singular presence. She also wrote: ''Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth; they fit like a snail to its shell''.

The Brontës in popular culture

Cinema

The American film ''Devotion'' 1946 by Curtis Bernhardt, constitutes a biography of the Brontë sisters. Ida Lupino plays Emily Brontë and Olivia de Havilland plays Charlotte Brontë.

In the 1967 French film ''Week-end'' by Jean-Luc Godard, Emily Brontë appears in a scene where one of the protagonists asks for geographical information.

''Les Sœurs Brontë'' is a 1979 French film by André Téchiné. Isabelle Adjani plays Emily Brontë, Marie-France Pisier plays Charlotte Brontë, and Isabelle Huppert plays Anne. Patrick Magee plays Patrick Brontë, while the role of Branwell Brontë is played by Pascal Greggory.

Opera

''Wuthering Heights'' has been the subject of at least three completed operas of the same name: Bernard Herrmann wrote his version between 1943 and 1951, and Carlisle Floyd's setting was premiered in 1958. Frédéric Chaslin also wrote an operatic version. Frederick Delius also started work on a ''Wuthering Heights'' opera but abandoned it early.

Other

Charlottebrontë is the name of asteroid #39427, discovered by Palomar Observatory on 25 September 1973. The asteroids #39428 and #39429 (both discovered on 29 September 1973, at Palomar Observatory) are named Emilybrontë and Annebrontë respectively. The impact crater Brontë, is named in honour of the Brontë family, and is 60 km diameter on the surface of the planet Mercury.

Several 20th century choreographic works have been inspired by the lives and works of the Brontë sisters. Martha Graham's ballet, ''Death and Entrances'' in 1943, from which the title is taken from a poem by Dylan Thomas.

In 1995 dancer Gillian Lynne presented a composition entitled ''The Brontës''.

In the Family Guy episode "New Kidney In Town," a cutaway gag shows Charlotte and Emily congratulating each other on their literary achievements, while Anne is shown as a crude simpleton (implying her literary contributions were negligible compared to her sisters).

References

;Notes

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

Further reading

Alexander, Christine and Sellars, J. (1995) ''The Art of the Brontës'', Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-43248-0

External links

Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth

The Brontës

Russian web site about Bronte Sisters

* Category:English writers Category:English women writers Category:English poets Category:Women poets Category:Victorian novelists Category:Women of the Victorian era

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Coordinates	38°09′0″N144°21′0″N
name	Emily Brontë
pseudonym	Ellis Bell
birth name	Emily Jane Brontë
birth date	July 30, 1818
birth place	Thornton, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
death date	December 19, 1848
death place	Haworth, Yorkshire, England
occupation	Poet, novelist, governess
nationality	English
genre	Fiction, poetry
movement	Romanticism
notableworks	''Wuthering Heights''
relatives	Brontë family
influences	''The Holy Bible'', William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, John Milton, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë
influenced	Virginia Woolf, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Carson, Phillip Roth, Alice Munro, Thomas Hardy, Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, Anne Brontë, J.K. Rowling
portaldisp	}}

Emily Jane Brontë (; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', a classic of English literature. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, between Charlotte and Anne. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell.

Biography

Emily Brontë was born on 30 July 1818 in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire, to Maria Branwell and Patrick Brontë. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth, where Emily's father was perpetual curate, and it was in these surroundings that their literary gifts flourished.

After the death of their mother in 1821, when Emily was three years old, the older sisters Maria, Elizabeth and Charlotte were sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, where they encountered abuse and privations later described by Charlotte in ''Jane Eyre''. Emily joined the school for a brief period. When a typhus epidemic swept the school, Maria and Elizabeth caught it. Maria, who may actually have had tuberculosis, was sent home, where she died. Emily was subsequently removed from the school along with Charlotte and Elizabeth. Elizabeth died soon after their return home.

The three remaining sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell were thereafter educated at home by their father and aunt Elizabeth Branwell, their mother's sister. In their leisure time the children created a number of paracosms, which were featured in stories they wrote and enacted about the imaginary adventures of their toy soldiers along with the Duke of Wellington and his sons, Charles and Arthur Wellesley. Little of Emily's work from this period survives, except for poems spoken by characters (''The Brontës' Web of Childhood'', Fannie Ratchford, 1941).

When Emily was 13, she and Anne withdrew from participation in the Angria story and began a new one about Gondal, a large island in the North Pacific. With the exception of Emily's Gondal poems and Anne's lists of Gondal's characters and place-names, their writings on Gondal were not preserved. Some "diary papers" of Emily's have survived in which she describes current events in Gondal, some of which were written, others enacted with Anne. One dates from 1841, when Emily was twenty-three: another from 1845, when she was twenty-seven.

At seventeen, Emily attended the Roe Head girls' school, where Charlotte was a teacher, but managed to stay only three months before being overcome by extreme homesickness. She returned home and Anne took her place. At this time, the girls' objective was to obtain sufficient education to open a small school of their own.

Emily became a teacher at Law Hill School in Halifax beginning in September 1838, when she was twenty. Her health broke under the stress of the 17-hour work day and she returned home in April 1839. Thereafter she became the stay-at-home daughter, doing most of the cooking and cleaning and teaching Sunday school. She taught herself German out of books and practised piano.

In 1842, Emily accompanied Charlotte to Brussels, Belgium, where they attended a girls' academy run by Constantin Heger. They planned to perfect their French and German in anticipation of opening their school. Nine of Emily's French essays survive from this period. The sisters returned home upon the death of their aunt. They did try to open a school at their home, but were unable to attract students to the remote area.

In 1844, Emily began going through all the poems she had written, recopying them neatly into two notebooks. One was labelled "Gondal Poems"; the other was unlabelled. Scholars such as Fannie Ratchford and Derek Roper have attempted to piece together a Gondal storyline and chronology from these poems.

In the fall of 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted that the poems be published. Emily, furious at the invasion of her privacy, at first refused, but relented when Anne brought out her own manuscripts and revealed she had been writing poems in secret as well.

In 1846, the sisters' poems were published in one volume as ''Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell''. The Brontë sisters had adopted pseudonyms for publication: Charlotte was Currer Bell, Emily was Ellis Bell and Anne was Acton Bell. Charlotte wrote in the "Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell" that their "ambiguous choice" was "dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because... we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice[.]" Charlotte contributed 20 poems, and Emily and Anne each contributed 21. Although the sisters were told several months after publication that only two copies had sold, they were not discouraged. The Athenaeum reviewer praised Ellis Bell's work for its music and power, and the Critic reviewer recognized "the presence of more genius than it was supposed this utilitarian age had devoted to the loftier exercises of the intellect."

In 1847, Emily published her novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', as two volumes of a three-volume set (the last volume being ''Agnes Grey'' by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics. thumb|right|240px|The Climb to Top Withens, Yorkshire, 2007. Although it received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. In 1850, Charlotte edited and published ''Wuthering Heights'' as a stand-alone novel and under Emily's real name. Although a letter from her publisher indicates that Emily was finalizing a second novel, the MS. has never been found.

Emily's health, like her sisters', had been weakened by unsanitary conditions at home, the source of water being contaminated by runoff from the church's graveyard. She caught a cold during the funeral of her brother in September 1848. She soon grew very thin and ill, but rejected medical help and refused all proffered remedies, saying that she would have "no poisoning doctor" near her. She died on 19 December 1848 at about two in the afternoon. She was interred in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels family vault, Haworth, West Yorkshire.

See also

Walterclough Hall

A Death-Scene – Poem published in 1846

Notes

References

Further reading

''Emily Brontë'', Charles Simpson

''In the Footsteps of the Brontës'', Ellis Chadwick

''The Oxford Reader's Companion to the Brontës'', Christine Alexander & Margaret Smith

''Literature and Evil'', Georges Bataille

''The Brontë Myth'', Lucasta Miller

''Emily'', Daniel Wynne

''Dark Quartet'', Lynne Reid Banks

''Emily Brontë'', Winifred Gerin

''A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë'', Katherine Frank

''Emily Brontë. Her Life and Work'', Muriel Spark and Derek Stanford

''Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters'', Denise Giardina

''Charlotte and Emily: A Novel of the Brontës'', Jude Morgan

External links

Website of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth

Some poems by Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë's grave

Memorial Page for Emily Brontë at Find-a-Grave

Short biography and selected Poems

Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights

Map of Locations associated with ''Wuthering Heights'' and Emily Brontë

Dutch website on the Brontës

Category:1818 births Category:1848 deaths Category:English poets Category:English novelists Category:Women novelists Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:Victorian novelists Category:Victorian women writers Category:English Anglicans Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Governesses Category:Female authors who wrote under male or gender-neutral pseudonyms Category:People from Thornton and Allerton Category:Women poets Category:English women writers Category:Victorian poets Category:Victorian poetry Category:Brontë family Category:Christian writers Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:British people of Cornish descent

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Coordinates	38°09′0″N144°21′0″N
name	Charlotte Brontë
birth date	April 21, 1816
birth place	Thornton, Yorkshire, England
death date	March 31, 1855
death place	Haworth, Yorkshire, England
occupation	governess, novelist, poet
nationality	English
genre	Fiction, Poetry
notableworks	Jane EyreVillette
spouse	Arthur Bell Nichols (1854–1855 (her death))
pseudonym	Lord Charles AlbertFlorian WellesleyCurrer Bell
signature	Charlotte Bronte Signature.jpg
influences	The Bible, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Milton, Robert Burns, Robert Southey, Walter Scott
influenced	George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Jean Rhys, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Stephenie Meyer }}

Charlotte Brontë (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, whose novels are English literature standards. She wrote ''Jane Eyre'' under the pen name Currer Bell.

Biography

Charlotte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire in 1816, the third of six children, to Maria (née Branwell) and her husband Patrick Brontë (formerly surnamed Brunty or Prunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820, the family moved a few miles to Haworth, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. Mrs. Brontë died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to be taken care of by her aunt Elizabeth Branwell. In August 1824, Charlotte was sent with three of her sisters, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire (which she would describe as Lowood School in ''Jane Eyre''). Its poor conditions, Charlotte maintained, permanently affected her health and physical development and hastened the deaths of her two elder sisters, Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who died of tuberculosis in June 1825. Soon after their father removed them from the school.

At home in Haworth Parsonage—a small rectory close to the graveyard of a bleak, windswept village on the Yorkshire moors—Charlotte acted as "the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters". She and the other surviving children— Branwell, Emily, and Anne – began chronicling the lives and struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary kingdoms. Charlotte and Branwell wrote Byronic stories about their country – Angria – and Emily and Anne wrote articles and poems about theirs – Gondal. The sagas were elaborate and convoluted (and still exist in partial manuscripts) and provided them with an obsessive interest during childhood and early adolescence, which prepared them for their literary vocations in adulthood.

Charlotte continued her education at Roe Head, Mirfield, from 1831 to 32, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period, she wrote her novella ''The Green Dwarf'' (1833) under the name of Wellesley. Charlotte returned as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. In 1839, she took up the first of many positions as governess to various families in Yorkshire, a career she pursued until 1841.

Politically a Tory, she preached tolerance rather than revolution. She held high moral principles, and, despite her shyness in company, she was always prepared to argue her beliefs.

In 1842 she and Emily travelled to Brussels to enroll in a boarding school run by Constantin Heger (1809–96) and his wife Claire Zoé Parent Heger (1804–89). In return for board and tuition, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their time at the boarding school was cut short when Elizabeth Branwell, their aunt who joined the family after the death of their mother to look after the children, died of internal obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the boarding school. Her second stay at the boarding school was not a happy one; she became lonely, homesick and deeply attached to Constantin Heger. She finally returned to Haworth in January 1844 and later used her time at the boarding school as the inspiration for some of ''The Professor'' and ''Villette''.

In May 1846, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne published a joint collection of poetry under the assumed names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Although only two copies were sold, the sisters continued writing for publication and began their first novels. Charlotte used "Currer Bell" when she published her first two novels. Of this, Brontë later wrote:

Indeed, her novels were deemed coarse by the critics. There was speculation about the identity of Currer Bell, and whether Bell was a man or a woman.

Charlotte's brother, Branwell, the only son of the family, died of chronic bronchitis and marasmus exacerbated by heavy drinking in September 1848, although Charlotte believed his death was due to tuberculosis. Branwell was also a suspected "opium eater", (i.e. a laudanum addict). Emily and Anne both died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848 and May 1849, respectively.

Charlotte and her father were now left alone together. In view of the enormous success of ''Jane Eyre'', she was persuaded by her publisher to visit London occasionally, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in a more exalted social circle, becoming friends with Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Gaskell, William Makepeace Thackeray and G. H. Lewes. Her book had sparked a movement in regards to feminism in literature. The main character, Jane Eyre, in her novel ''Jane Eyre'', was a parallel to herself, a woman who was strong. However, she never left Haworth for more than a few weeks at a time as she did not want to leave her ageing father's side.

Thackeray’s daughter, the writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie recalled a visit to her father by Charlotte Brontë:

In June 1854, Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate and, in the opinion of many scholars, the model for several of her literary characters such as ''Jane Eyre's'' Rochester and St. John. She became pregnant soon after the marriage. Her health declined rapidly during this time, and according to Gaskell, her earliest biographer, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." Charlotte died, along with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, at the young age of 38. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as phthisis (tuberculosis), but many biographers suggest she may have died from dehydration and malnourishment, caused by excessive vomiting from severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. There is also evidence to suggest that Charlotte died from typhus she may have caught from Tabitha Ackroyd, the Brontë household's oldest servant, who died shortly before her. Charlotte was interred in the family vault in The Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Haworth, West Yorkshire, England.

''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by Gaskell, was the first of many biographies about Charlotte to be published. Though frank in places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Heger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and as a possible source of distress to Charlotte's still-living friends, father and husband. Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming, for example, that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes the preparation of meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage, as Juliet Barker points out in her recent biography, ''The Brontës''.

Posthumously, her first-written novel was published in 1857, the fragment she worked on in her last years in 1860 (twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being ''Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë'' by Clare Boylan, 2003), and much Angria material over the ensuing decades.

Gallery

Bibliography

Juvenilia

''The Spell''

''The Secret''

''Lily Hart''

''The Foundling''

''The Green Dwarf''

''My Angria and the Angrians''

''Albion and Marina''

''The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense'' was written in 1833 under the pseudonym Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley. It shows the influence of Walter Scott, and Brontë's modifications to her earlier gothic style have led Christine Alexander to comment that, in the work, "it is clear that Brontë was becoming tired of the gothic mode ''per se''".

''Tales of Angria'', written 1838–1839

*A collection of childhood and young adult writings including the short novels

**Mina Laury

**Stancliffe's Hotel

**The Duke of Zamorna

**Henry Hastings

**Caroline Vernon

''Tales of the Islanders''

Novels

''Jane Eyre'', published 1847

''Shirley'', published 1849

''Villette'', published 1853

''The Professor'', written before ''Jane Eyre'', submitted at first along with ''Wuthering Heights'' and ''Agnes Grey'', then separately, and rejected in either form by many publishing houses, published posthumously in 1857

''Emma'', unfinished; Charlotte Brontë wrote only 20 pages of the manuscript, published posthumously in 1860. In recent decades, at least two continuations of this fragment have appeared:

:* ''Emma'', by "Charlotte Brontë and Another Lady", published 1980; although this has been attributed to Elizabeth Goudge, the actual author was Constance Savery. :* ''Emma Brown'', by Clare Boylan, published 2003

Poetry

''Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell'' (1846)

''Selected Poems of The Brontës'', Everyman Poetry (1997)

Notes

References

Margaret Lane (1953) ''The Brontë Story: a reconsideration of Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë''.

Further reading

''The Letters of Charlotte Brontë'', 3 volumes edited by Margaret Smith

''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', Elizabeth Gaskell

''Charlotte Brontë'', Winifred Gérin

''Charlotte Brontë: a passionate life'', Lyndal Gordon

''The Literary Protégées of the Lake Poets'', Dennis Low (Chapter 1 contains a revisionist contextualisation of Robert Southey's infamous letter to Charlotte Brontë)

''Charlotte Brontë: Unquiet Soul'', Margot Peters

''In the Footsteps of the Brontës'', Ellis Chadwick

''Charlotte Brontë'', Rebecca Fraser

''The Brontës'', Juliet Barker

''Charlotte Brontë and her Dearest Nell'', Barbara Whitehead

''The Brontë Myth'', Lucasta Miller

''A Life in Letters'', selected by Juliet Barker

''Charlotte Brontë and her Family'', Rebecca Fraser

''The Oxford Reader's Companion to the Brontës'', Christine Alexander & Margaret Smith

''A Brontë Family Chronology'', Edward Chitham

''The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte'', James Tilly, 1999

''I Love Charlotte Bronte'', Michelle Daly 2009

External links

Website of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire

Online editions of Charlotte Brontë's works at eBooks@Adelaide

Charlotte Brontë – Drawing by George Richmond (National Portrait Gallery)

Modern Day Images of Charlotte Bronte Residences

Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, by Clement K. Shorter, from Project Gutenberg

More Information about Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte's Web: A Hypertext on Charlotte Brontë's ''Jane Eyre''

Memorial Page for Charlotte Bronte on FindaGrave

Various images depicting residences of Charlotte Bronte

'Napoleon and the Spectre', taken from the manuscript of the ''Green Dwarf''

'The Secret' and 'Lily Hart': An Early Manuscript by Charlotte Bronte

Category:English novelists Category:English women writers Category:English poets Category:Women novelists Category:Governesses Category:People from Thornton and Allerton Category:Brontë family Category:English Anglicans Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:Female authors who wrote under male or gender-neutral pseudonyms Category:Christian writers Category:Deaths from typhus Category:1816 births Category:1855 deaths Category:Victorian novelists Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:British people of Cornish descent Category:English people of Irish descent Category:Women poets Category:Victorian women writers

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Coordinates	38°09′0″N144°21′0″N
Name	Sara Evans
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Sara Lynn Evans
Birth date	February 05, 1971
Birth place	Boonville, Missouri, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals
Genre	Country
Occupation	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1992–present
Label	RCA Nashville
Associated acts	Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood, LeAnn Rimes, Mindy McCready
Website	saraevans.com }}

Sara Lynn Evans (; born February 5, 1971) is an American country singer and songwriter.

Evans was one of the few traditional-styled singers to emerge from Nashville in the late 1990s, according to Allmusic. Since emerging in the late 1990s, Evans has made five No. 1 Country hits and Gold and Platinum-certified albums by the RIAA, like 2003's ''Restless'' and 2005's ''Real Fine Place''. Her 2000 album, ''Born to Fly'' was certified Double-Platinum.

Biography

Early life and the rise to fame

Evans was born in Boonville, Missouri, in 1971, and is of Welsh, English, and Irish descent. She was raised on a farm near New Franklin, MO, the eldest girl of seven children. By five she was singing weekends in her family's band. At age eight, she was struck by an automobile in front of the family home, and her legs suffered multiple fractures. Recuperating for months in a wheelchair, she continued singing to help pay her medical bills. When she was 16, she began performing at a nightclub near Columbia, Missouri, a gig that lasted two years.

Evans moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1991 to be a country music artist. She met fellow musician Craig Schelske and left Nashville with him in 1992, moving to Oregon. They married in 1993. She returned to Nashville in 1995 and began recording demos. Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard was impressed by her demo of his song "Tiger by the Tail". He decided to help her music career, leading to a signed contract with RCA Nashville.

In 1997, Evans released her first album for RCA, ''Three Chords and the Truth''. Critics praised the album for returning to traditional country and included it in many of their yearly "Top 10" lists. The video for "Three Chords and the Truth", directed by Susan Johnson, was nominated for awards from ''Billboard'' Magazine, CMT, and the MVPA. The album included a cover version of an older Country song, Patsy Cline's "Imagine That", which originally reached No. 21 for Cline on the country charts in 1962. None of the three singles made the top 40. It would be another year before Evans gained full popularity. In 1998 Evans released her second album, ''No Place That Far''. Critics slammed her on choosing a more pop-country sound. Her first single, "Cryin' Game", hardly made a ripple on the charts but the music video, which re-teamed Evans with director Susan Johnson, did very well in rotation. However, it was her next single, "No Place That Far", a duet with Vince Gill, that brought her massive success, reaching #1 on the Country charts, as well as the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 Top 40. Because of its success, the album was certified "Gold" by the RIAA.

Breakthrough: the ''Born to Fly'' and ''Restless'' albums

In 2000, Evans worked on a third album to be released later that year. The album, ''Born to Fly'', was released to stores on October 10, 2000, and later became another major-selling album. She insisted on hiring Seattle-based rock drummer Matt Chamberlain (The Wallflowers, Edie Brickell), who brought a different sound to her music. The album became Evans' first album to receive a "Platinum" rating by the RIAA, and spawned four country hits, including the title track ("Born to Fly") which was the first single released from the album, reaching the No. 1 spot on the Country charts, Evans' first No. 1 as a solo artist. Hits continued from the album all the way into 2002. After "Born to Fly", the second single, "I Could Not Ask for More", was released in 2001, the country version of Edwin McCain's big pop–rock hit from the year before. Evans' version reached No. 2 on the country charts and was a No. 35 Pop hit, ironically an even bigger Pop hit than McCain's version on Billboard's Hot 100 (McCain's version reached No. 37). In 2002, songs continued to be released from the album; "Saints and Angels" and "I Keep Looking" were the last two singles released from the album. "I Keep Looking" reached No. 5 and "Saints and Angels" reached No. 16. In 2004, the ''Born to Fly'' album was officially certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.

In 2001, Evans was the most-nominated artist at the Country Music Association awards with seven nominations overall, and she won her first CMA award when "Born to Fly" won the award for ''Video of the Year'', her first major award from Country music.

In 2003, Evans recorded a long-awaited fourth album, which was titled ''Restless''. The album was released August 19, 2003 to stores. The first single released from the album in 2003, "Back Seat of a Greyhound Bus", was a Top 20 Country hit, reaching No. 16 on the Hot Country Songs list that year, but it did not hit the Billboard Hot 100, peaking outside it on the Bubbling Hot 100. Despite the album's first single not reaching the Top 10, the album still sold fairly well, debuting at No. 3 on the "Top Country Albums" list and the No. 20 on the "Billboard 200" list, and sold over 40,000 copies within its first week. However it was the album's next single, "Perfect" that broke Country's Top 10, eventually peaking in the top 5 at No. 2, barely missing Country's top spot. The third single from the album, "Suds in the Bucket", was the album's most successful single; it became Evans' third Number One hit and was also a Top 40 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Additionally, it was Evans' first ever Gold-certified single by the RIAA. The album's fourth and final single, "Tonight", failed to reach the Top 40 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

''Restless'' received a nomination in the 2005 Academy of Country Music Awards.

Success of the ''Real Fine Place'' album and ''Greatest Hits''

After 2003's ''Restless'' album, Evans re-emerged with a fifth studio album titled ''Real Fine Place'', released October 4, 2005. The album's lead single, "A Real Fine Place to Start," reached No. 1 on the Country charts in 2005, as well as reaching the Pop Top 40 at No. 38. The single marked the first time Evans charted on Billboard's "Pop 100" and "Hot Digital Songs" chart, reaching No. 67 and No. 62 respectively. "A Real Fine Place" was another Gold-certified single by the RIAA. The album sold 130,000 copies within its first week, becoming Evans' first album to reach the No. 1 spot on the "Top Country Albums" chart, while also becoming her most successful album on the "Billboard 200" to date, reaching No. 3. The album sold three times more copies than her previous album had done in their first weeks. On December 6, 2005, Evans released the compilation album ''Feels Like Home'' through Cracker Barrel stores. The album contains remixes of some of her most popular songs, including a live version of "Born to Fly" and an acoustic version of "No Place That Far". In 2005 the album's follow-up single "Cheatin'" was a top 10 Country hit, peaking at No. 9 there. The third single released from the album, "Coalmine", was the least successful single, just about breaking Billboard's Country Top 40 chart in early 2006.

In 2006, R&R; announced Evans as the "Female Vocalist of the Year" in its 2006 Readers' Poll. In spring 2006, Evans released ''Always There'' through Hallmark stores for Mothers' Day. The album has six of her favorite already-released songs, including a live version of "Suds in the Bucket" and an acoustic version of "Born to Fly". Two new songs are on the disc: "You Ought to Know by Now" and "Brooklyn & Austin". In 2006, the last significant single from the ''Real Fine Place'' album was released, titled "You'll Always Be My Baby", which was a Top 20 Country hit, but missing Billboard's Hot 100, reaching a peak position on the Bubbling Hot 100 at #105. An album cut released from the album in 2006, "Missing Missouri", reached No. 52 on the Country charts that year. On May 23, 2006, Evans competed and performed at the 2006 ACM awards show in Las Vegas, where she won her first ACM for the "Top Female Vocalist". Evans also became a spokesperson for National Eating Disorders Association, and has spoken out widely on this subject, as she has been personally affected by it. She also hosted a charity event, Fashion for Every Body, which featured a fashion show, silent auction and performance by Evans.

On October 9, 2007, Evans released her first ''Greatest Hits'' collection. The compilation features four new songs, including the lead-off single "As If", which was a Top 20 hit on the country charts. Evans released the gift book ''You'll Always Be My Baby'' (based on her song). It was written by Evans, Tony Martin and Tom Shapiro. It was announced on October 15, 2007, that Evans would host the 41st annual CMA Awards show with LeAnn Rimes on November 7, 2007.

A libertarian Republican, Evans also showed support for Texas Congressman Ron Paul in the 2008 Presidential election and was the headliner at his "Rally For The Republic" on September 2, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the same day as the Republican National Convention in neighboring St. Paul.

''Stronger'' and career today

The single "Low" (sung by Sara Evans) was released to radio on September 29, 2008, to promote ''Billy: The Early Years'' (for the movie released October 10). The song is featured on the movie's soundtrack which was released on October 7, 2008, and also includes other big name country artists. "Low" debuted (and peaked) on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs chart at No. 59 on October 12, 2008. It only remained on the chart for one week before returning for a second week in January 2009 at the same position.

A book called ''Sweet By and By'', written by Evans with author Rachel Hauck, was released on January 5, 2010. It is the first release of a four-book deal inked with Thomas Nelson Fiction. The second book is ''Softly and Tenderly'', and was released January 14, 2011, with the following third and fourth books to be released 2012 and 2013.

Evans stated in a video posting to her fan club on December 23, 2008, that she was working with her brother Matt Evans and producer Nathan Chapman on her sixth studio album. "Feels Just Like a Love Song", was released on July 20, 2009. The song debuted and peaked at No. 59 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs chart; after spending two weeks on the chart, it fell off. It was intended as the lead-off single to Evans' sixth studio album, ''Stronger'', but was later cut from the final track listing.

In 2009, ABC Daytime and SOAPnet sponsored a tour, headlined by Evans, that featured performances throughout the summer. Additionally, soap performers made appearances at her shows. Evans participated in performances on the networks, as well as on-air interstitial campaigns and online promotions.

In late 2009, Evans released a four-song Christmas EP, ''I'll Be Home for Christmas'', to coincide with her 2009 Christmas tour. The EP includes the title track as well as "O' Come All Ye Faithful", "Go Tell It on the Mountain", and "New Again" (a duet with Brad Paisley). It was released on November 3, 2009 to digital retailers.

During Evans' 2010 fanclub party on June 10, 2010, she debuted the first single from her sixth studio album, ''Stronger'', which was released on March 8, 2011. The song, titled "A Little Bit Stronger," was released to radio on September 27, 2010. One of the few songs on the album not co-written by the artist, it was pitched to Evans by its songwriter, Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum. Additionally, the song was included on the soundtrack to the 2010 film ''Country Strong''. It debuted at No. 56 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs chart for the week of October 2, 2010 and hit No. 1 in May 2011. The video for "A Little Bit Stronger" hit number one on the GAC top 20 country video countdown on May 20, 2011. Evans sang the song on the finale of season 12 of the American ABC TV show ''Dancing with the Stars'' on May 24, 2011.

She released "My Heart Can't Tell You No", her second single from ''Stronger'', to radio on June 20, 2011.

Television work

In April 2004, Evans appeared as a special guest on "Nashville Star". She appeared on the game show "Million Dollar Password" in June 2008.

In September 2006, Evans began competing with other celebrities on the third season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars with (professional) partner Tony Dovolani. Evans launched a new fan web site to provide behind-the-scenes material from her participation on the program. Evans was the first country music singer to ever participate in the show. However, she chose to withdraw from the competition due to her divorce.

Also in 2006, Evans guest starred on Jeff Foxworthy's TV show, ''Foxworthy's Big Night Out''.

Evans made an appearance judging on ''HGTV Design Star'' in which she chose which of two redesigned rooms at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center was most like her own style. This aired on July 6, 2008

In October 2008, Evans also hosted a charity skating fundraiser, "Skating for Life". Olympic skaters skated to Evans' songs.

In March 2009, Evans hosted the ''ACM GAC Top New Artist Special'', which launched the fan voting for the ACMs three new categories: Top New Female Vocalist, Top New Male Vocalist and Top New Vocal Duo or Group.

Evans sang "God Bless America" during the All Star Game in St Louis, Missouri on July 12, 2009.

In June 2011 Evans appeared on the Flatts Fest 2011 Tour with Rascal Flatts, Justin Moore, and Easton Corbin.

Sara Evans' Band

Current band:

Sara Evans - Lead Vocals

Jim Bloodgood - Drums

Matt Evans - Bass/Band Leader/Harmony Vocals (Sara's brother)

Lesley Evans Lyons - Harmony Vocals (Sara's sister)

Ashley Evans Simpson - Harmony Vocals (Sara's sister)

Jonathan Lawson - Fiddle/Acoustic Guitar/Harmony Vocals

Justin Butler - Lead Guitar/Acoustic Guitar

Brent Wilson - Lead Guitar/Acoustic Guitar/Mandolin/Harmony Vocals

Personal life

Evans married Craig Schelske, an aspiring politician, on September 25, 1993, and divorced in September 2007. Evans and Schelske have three children: Avery Jack (born August 21, 1999), Olivia Margaret (born January 22, 2003) and Audrey Elizabeth (born October 6, 2004).

On June 14, 2008, Evans married Jay Barker, a former University of Alabama quarterback, national championship winner and current radio show host. They married in Franklin, Tennessee, with their children as their attendants. Evans and her three children now live in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, with Barker and his children.

Divorce

On October 12, 2006, Evans left ''Dancing with the Stars'', citing personal reasons, and the following day it was revealed that Evans had filed for divorce from her husband of 13 years, Craig Schelske. Documents filed by Evans' husband accused the singer of having close to a dozen affairs, including singer/songwriter Richard Marx, country star Kenny Chesney, ''Dancing with the Stars'' partner Tony Dovolani, various members of Evans' band, and four of the five members of the rock band 3 Doors Down. A representative for Chesney called the allegations "ridiculous," and Kirt Webster, a spokesman for the rock band 3 Doors Down, stated that the accusations are "ludicrous" and "untrue" and that the band members "are saddened by what she's going through."

On September 28, 2007, the divorce between Evans and Schelske became final. Evans will pay him a minimum of $500,000 in alimony over a ten-year period. Evans was awarded custody of their three children with visitation rights to Schelske.

An ex-nanny of Evans', Alison Clinton Lee, sued her for $3 million, claiming that Evans has smeared her name by including it in her divorce papers as one of the many women Evans claims her husband had affairs with. The case was settled in July 2009, for $500,000.

On February 25, 2010, Evans obtained a restraining order against Schelske. Documents say Schelske is not allowed to make any derogatory statements about Evans to the media or make allegations about what led to their divorce.

Awards and nominations

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- ! Year ! Award ! Category ! Result |- | 1997 | Billboard Music Video Awards | Best Country New Artist Video of the Year | |- | rowspan="2"|1999 | rowspan="2"|Country Music Association Awards | Vocal Event of the Year | |- | Horizon Award | |- | 2000 | Country Music Association Awards | Horizon Award | |- | rowspan="5"|2001 | rowspan="5"|Country Music Association Awards | Video of the Year for "Born to Fly" | |- | Single of the Year for "Born to Fly" | |- | Song of the Year for "Born to Fly" | |- | Album of the Year for ''Born to Fly'' | |- | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | rowspan="2"|2002 | Academy of Country Music Awards | Top Female Vocalist | |- | Country Music Association Awards | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | rowspan="3"|2004 | Country Music Association Awards | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | CMT Flameworthy Awards | Female Video of the Year for "Perfect" | |- | BMI Country Awards | 50 Most Performed Country Songs Award for "Perfect" | |- | rowspan="5"|2005 | CMT Music Awards | Hottest Video of the Year for "Suds in the Bucket" | |- | rowspan="2"|Academy of Country Music Awards | Top Female Vocalist | |- | Album of the Year for ''Restless'' | |- | rowspan="2"|Country Music Association Awards | Musical Event of the Year for "New Again" (with Brad Paisley) | |- | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | rowspan="4"|2006 | CMT Music Awards | Female Video of the Year for "A Real Fine Place To Start" | |- | R&R; | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | Academy of Country Music Awards | Top Female Vocalist | |- | Country Music Association Awards | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | rowspan="2"|2007 | CMT Music Awards | Female Video of the Year for "You'll Always Be My Baby" | |- | BMI Country Awards | 50 Most Performed Country Songs Award for "You'll Always Be My Baby" | |- | 2008 | BMI Country Awards | 50 Most Performed Country Songs for "As If" | |- | 2010 | Dove Awards | Special Event Album for ''Glory Revealed II: The Word of God In Worship'' | |- | rowspan="3"|2011 | CMT Music Awards | Female Video of the Year for "A Little Bit Stronger" | |- | rowspan="2"|Country Music Association Awards | Female Vocalist of the Year | |- | Single of the Year for "A Little Bit Stronger" | |- |}

Discography

;Studio Albums

1997: ''Three Chords and the Truth''

1998: ''No Place That Far''

2000: ''Born to Fly''

2003: ''Restless''

2005: ''Real Fine Place''

2011: ''Stronger''

;Compilation album

2007: ''Greatest Hits''

References

External links

SaraEvans.com (Official site)

Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:People from Boonville, Missouri Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American female singers Category:Musicians from Missouri Category:American libertarians Category:Tennessee Republicans Category:American country singer-songwriters Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:RCA Records artists

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