Emily Bronte

[On Tuesdays, I'm going to try to devote a post to literature, whether it be a book review, biography of an author, or whatever else strikes my fancy. :-)]
On July 30th, 1818, one of the most intriguing novelists England has ever produced was born. Emily was the fifth of six children born to Patrick and Maria Bronte. While she was still a young child, her mother died of cancer, and her father, a seemingly introverted and studious curate, had little time to spend with his children. Although left to their own devices to amuse themselves, the Bronte children had no trouble finding ways to pass the time - they were often occupied reading, drawing, and writing short stories set in imaginary worlds. Little of these survive. Undoubtedly, this practice had a strong influence on Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights.

In 1842, Emily traveled to Brussels to study foreign language, but stayed there for less than a year. She seems to have been prone to homesickness. After her return from abroad, Emily and her sisters began to write seriously. Unfortunately, the sisters’ first, and only book published together - a collection of poems - wasn’t a success. The volume sold two copies. Undaunted by this setback, Bronte, her pen name being Ellis Bell, went on to write her infamous novel, Wuthering Heights, in 1847.

Unlike her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s novel initially received mixed reviews. As time went by, some believed Bronte’s brother Branwell wrote the book; despite the influential presence of Romanticism, the rigidly moral Victorian culture frowned upon women writing novels, much less one glorifying ardent passions and eerily Gothic events as Wuthering Heights did. However, not many years went by before it was acclaimed a literary classic.

The following year, Branwell died in September after dealing with alcoholism, an opium addiction, and depression. At the funeral, Emily caught a cold which eventually developed into Tuberculosis. Refusing medical attention, she died on December 19, 1848, at the age of 30. In 1850, Charlotte revised and edited a new edition of Wuthering Heights, revealing the true identity of the author.