Charlotte Brontë

by Claire Harman

  I was very fortunate to be awarded a grant from The Authors’ Foundation during the writing of this book and would like to express my gratitude to the assessors of the award and to its administrators, The Society of Authors.

  At Alfred A. Knopf I would like to thank my wonderful editor Kris Puopolo for her sensitive and intelligent reading of my manuscript and friendly advice, also Daniel Meyer, Kathy Zuckerman and Joshua Zadjman for all their hard work on the book. My agent Geri Thoma was, as ever, a stalwart and cheerful support throughout the project.

  Lastly, I would like to make a special mention of my dear friend Hannah Westland, whose infectious enthusiasm for this project at its inception was extremely important to me and who has remained a most affectionate well-wisher throughout.

  Paul Strohm has been the most patient of partners during the writing of this book, and it is dedicated to him with love and gratitude.

  Abbreviations

  AB

  Anne Brontë

  ABN

  Arthur Bell Nicholls

  BB

  (Patrick) Branwell Brontë

  CB

  Charlotte Brontë (later Nicholls)

  CH

  Constantin Heger

  ECG

  Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

  EJB

  Emily Jane Brontë

  EN

  Ellen Nussey

  GS

  George Smith

  MB

  Maria Brontë (née Branwell)

  MW

  Margaret Wooler

  PB

  Reverend Patrick Brontë

  WSW

  William Smith Williams

  Art of the Brontës Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars, The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge, 1995)

  Barker Juliet Barker, The Brontës (London, 1994)

  BPM Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth

  Brontëana Brontëana. The Rev. Patrick Brontë, A.B., His Collected Works and Life: The Works, and the Brontës of Ireland, ed. J. Horsfall Turner (Bingley, 1898)

  BS Brontë Studies

  BST Brontë Society Transactions

  Critical Heritage The Brontës: The Critical Heritage, ed. Miriam Allott (London, 1974)

  ECG Letters The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, eds. J. A. V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard (Manchester, 1997)

  EJB Poems The Poems of Emily Brontë, eds. Derek Roper with Edward Chitham (Oxford, 1995)

  EN Reminiscences Ellen Nussey, “Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë by ‘A Schoolfellow,’ ” Scribner’s Monthly, May 1871, reprinted as an appendix in LCB 1, 589–610

  EWCB An Edition of the Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë, ed. Christine Alexander (Oxford, 1987–91). Vol. 1: 1826–32; Vol. 2 (Part 1): 1833–4; Vol. 2 (Part 2): 1834–5

  Interviews The Brontës: Interviews and Recollections, ed. Harold Orel (Iowa City, 1997)

  LCB The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, with a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, ed. Margaret Smith (Oxford, 1995–2004). Vol. 1: 1829–47; Vol. 2: 1848–51; Vol. 3: 1852–55

  Life Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, ed. Angus Easson (Oxford, 1996)

  Lonoff Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë: The Belgian Essays, ed. Sue Lonoff (Yale, 1996)

  LPB The Letters of the Reverend Patrick Brontë, ed. Dudley Green (Stroud, 2005)

  PCB The Poems of Charlotte Brontë: A New Text and Commentary, ed. Victor A. Neufeldt (New York and London, 1985)

  SHB The Brontës: Their Lives, Friendships & Correspondence (The Shakespeare Head Brontë), eds. Thomas J. Wise and J. Alexander Symington (4 vols.; Oxford, 1932)

  TGA The Brontës: Tales of Glass Town, Angria and Gondal, ed. Christine Alexander (Oxford, 2010)

  Notes

  Volumes cited in short form can be found in the bibliography.

  Epigraphs

  there’s a fire and fury raging in that little woman: William Makepeace Thackeray to Mary Holmes, 25 February 1852, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, collected and edited by Gordon N. Ray (4 vols.; London, 1946), 3, 12.

  a tiny, delicate, little person: Anne Thackeray Ritchie, “My Witches’ Cauldron,” Macmillans’ Magazine, February 1891: extract reprinted in LCB 2, 754–5.

  talented people: CB to EN, 14 April 1846, LCB 1, 463.

  Prologue: 1 September 1843

  I should inevitably fall: CB to EJB, 2 September 1843, LCB 1, 329.

  great honest eyes: the description is William Makepeace Thackeray’s in “The Last Sketch,” The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 1 (April 1860), quoted in Interviews, 109.

  [I]t is an imbecility: CB to EN, ?April 1843, LCB 1, 315.

  No inhabitant of Brussels: The Professor, 138.

  Romanism…pervaded every arrangement…sensual indulgence…reared in slavery: Villette, 127.

  I felt as if: CB to EJB, 2 September 1843, LCB 1, 329.

  [B]ut I was determined to confess…I actually did confess: CB to EJB, 2 September 1843, LCB 1, 330.

  consciousness of faculties unexercised: CB to EN, 7 August 1841, LCB 1, 266.

  the mere relief: Villette, 162.

  I saw her for an instant: CB to EJB, 1 October 1843, LCB 1, 331.

  ONE Becoming Brontë, 1777–1820

  My father’s name: PB to ECG, 20 June 1855, LPB, 233.

  A neat Irish cabin: PB, Cottage Poems, 73.

  owned four books: Lock and Dixon, A Man of Sorrow, 4.

  insidious, And Malignant enemies: PB to Hugh Brontë, 20 November 1843, LPB, 155.

  but…of all kinds of tyranny: PB to the editor of The Leeds Intelligencer, 22 July 1843, LPB, 143.

  very genteelly: Henry Kirke White to his mother, 26 October 1805, LPB, 318.

  Nelson’s Bronte: see Jane Grey Nelson, “Sicily and the Brontë Name,” BST, 16:1 (1971); and Stephen Whitehead, “The Dukedom of Bronte and the Name ‘Brontë,’ ” BS, 25:1 (2000).

  assumed to be the hero’s kin: see CB to WSW, ?5 November 1849, LCB 2, 279.

  to live & rot in old England: PB to the Reverend John Campbell, 12 November 1808, LPB, 24.

  considerable sums: PB’s will, dated 20 June 1855, is printed in LPB, 372.

  violated both the dictates…peace & contentment…The Lady I mentioned: all from PB to the Reverend John Campbell, 12 November 1808, LPB, 24.

  He is said: these stories about PB in Dewsbury come from W. W. Yates, The Father of the Brontës.

  clever and good-hearted: Yates, 38.

  reported peculiarities: Yates, 22.

  from morning till noon: Cottage Poems, xiv.

  To Miss Fennell: this first edition of Cottage Poems is in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of New York Public Library.

  Cartwright was ready and waiting: the attack was reported vividly in The Leeds Mercury, 45:243 (18 April 1812). See also E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 638; and Barker, 45–7. Other information about Rawfolds Mill was accessed from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society website (April 2014), https://www.yas.org.uk.

  the group who helped Cartwright: there were only four of them: Hammond Roberson, who reportedly arrived on the scene on horseback, waving his sword around angrily, two other local manufacturers called Cockhill and Dixon—a master-dyer and chemical works manager respectively—and “a local bon-vivant named Clough” (E. P. Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, 638).

  the ink has faded: see Barker, 46 and 844 n61.

  Neither of these stories: Juliet Barker points out (Barker, 47) that there was no need to give Luddites secret burials.

  For some years now: MB to PB, 18 September 1812, SHB 1, 13.

  I thank God: MB to PB, 18 September 1812, SHB 1, 13.

  nobly-shaped head…in his youth: Life, 34.

  not pretty: Life, 37.

  possessing more than ordinary talents: Life, 40.

  there is a rectitude: CB to EN, ?16 February 1850, LCB 2, 347.

  If you knew what were my feelings: MB to PB, 26 August 1812, SHB 1, 9.

&
nbsp; your arm to assist me…when I work…I have now written a pretty long letter: MB to PB, 5 September 1812, SHB 1, 11.

  a pretty correct notion: MB to PB, 5 September 1812, SHB 1, 11.

  And even I begin to think: MB to PB, 18 September 1812, SHB 1, 13–14.

  the anticipation: MB to PB, 21 October 1812, SHB 1, 19.

  Real love is ever apt to suspect…I am certain: MB to PB, 5 December 1812, SHB 1, 22–3.

  a pathos of apprehension: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 608.

  a very few articles: SHB 1, 21. Five years after Maria’s death her copy of The Imitation of Christ was given to her daughter Charlotte and is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.

  no record of Maria ever going back: Elizabeth Gaskell heard that Maria Brontë’s friends in Cornwall had “disowned her at her marriage” (LCB 2, 447), a claim which, like many things from the same source, Janet Kay-Shuttleworth, turned out to be distorted or exaggerated.

  on the same day and hour: SHB 1, 30.

  constant friendly intercourse: SHB 1, 37.

  she kissed me and was much affected: extracts from Elizabeth Firth’s diary, LPB, 337.

  beloved sister: the copy of Cottage Poems inscribed by PB to Elizabeth Branwell is in BPM.

  M. E. and C. Brontë to tea: LPB, 340.

  Came home in safety: LPB, 340.

  We sat up expecting the Radicals: LPB, 341.

  by his prophecies: C. C. Moore Smith’s note to Elizabeth Firth’s diary, SHB 1, 45n.

  The sensual novelist: Patrick Brontë, The Cottage in the Wood, 3.

  TWO An Uncivilised Little Place, 1820–25

  The footprint of Haworth Parsonage: the shape of the building in 1853 is shown very clearly on the map of Haworth made by the Board of Health assessors that year, a copy of which is in the Keighley Local Services Archive (see photograph section). Jocelyn Kellett, in Haworth Parsonage: The Home of the Brontës (Keighley, 1977), includes fascinating floorplans showing CB’s alterations to the house in the 1850s and John Wade’s more extensive changes in the 1860s. More information about the Parsonage, including the detail about the outside stairs, can be found in Sarah Barrett, A Room of Their Own: 80 Years of the Brontë Parsonage Museum 1928–2008 (Kendal, 2008).

  hundreds of thousands of pounds: ECG to ?John Forster, after 29 September 1853, LCB 3, 198.

  A strange uncivilized little place: CB to WSW, 24 August 1849, LCB 2, 240.

  the language, the manners, the very dwellings: CB’s preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights.

  Brutal tendencies: the opinion of Benjamin Binns, son of PB’s tailor, as reported in “The Brontës and the Brontë Country: A Chat with One Who Knew Them,” The Bradford Observer, 17 February 1894.

  the old hill spirit…I believe many of the Yorkshiremen…kept themselves very close: Life, 42.

  Grandisonian: the comparison with Samuel Richardson’s hero, the epitome of fastidious politeness, was the opinion of BB’s friend Francis Grundy, as recalled in 1879; see Interviews, 46.

  indeed he was cautious: “The Brontës and the Brontë Country: A Chat with One Who Knew Them,” The Bradford Observer, 17 February 1894.

  arguments needlessly complicated: see for instance LPB, 140–41, 163, 166, 169.

  you have such a method: SHB 1, 15.

  I caught a glare: ECG to ?John Forster, ?after 29 September 1853, LCB 3, 199.

  volcanic…in rapid succession…either the make: passages omitted from the third edition of Life, as are the stories about the hearthrug, the boots and the chairs; see Life, 471–2.

  treasured up in her drawers…cut into shreds: Life, 471.

  in the fashion of that day: SHB 1, 49–50.

  Charlotte certainly passed it on…Ellen herself added the detail: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 607–8.

  They have their humors and their faults: LPB, 71. PB’s variations are interesting: in the first of the two quoted quatrains, he has substituted “failings” for “foibles,” and, in the second, “To clamor, rage and boast,/For wives their duties best discharge” for “Whate’er proud reason boast;/For those their duties best discharge.”

  a stranger in a strange land…left nearly quite alone: SHB 1, 58.

  an internal cancer: Life, 43.

  almost every day: SHB 1, 58.

  an affectionate, agonising something …She was cold and silent: SHB 1, 59.

  The mother was not very anxious…as it was done in Cornwall: Life, 43.

  spiritless…toddling wee things: Life, 43.

  her constitution was enfeebled: SHB 1, 59.

  oh God my poor children!: related by ECG in a letter to Catherine Winkworth, 25 August 1850, LCB 2, 447.

  During many years: SHB 1, 59.

  all the dear faces: related in Marion Harland, Charlotte Brontë at Home (New York and London, 1899), 28.

  [she] tried hard: Life, 46.

  unknown, unloved…The longing of her childhood: Shirley, 271.

  The offspring nestled to the parent: Shirley, 362.

  just before the Miss Brontës became famous: SHB 1, 38.

  I heard before I left: quoted in C. M. Edgerley, “Elizabeth Branwell: The ‘small, antiquated lady,’ ” BST, 9:2 (1937).

  whether they be married or single: this and all the other quotes in the paragraph are from PB to Mary Burder, 28 July 1823, SHB 1, 62–3.

  one whom I cannot think…Happily for me: Mary Burder to PB, 8 August 1823, SHB 1, 65.

  many keen sarcasms: SHB 1, 66.

  Once more let me ask you: SHB 1, 68.

  A story she told: EN relates it in EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 607.

  a little mother…superhuman in goodness and cleverness: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 593.

  the leading topics of the day: Life, 48.

  Would you not be happier: Jane Eyre, 58.

  as soon as they could read and write…signs of rising talent: Life, 47.

  I began with the youngest: Life, 48.

  the really necessitous clergy: “Cowan Bridge: New Light from Old Documents,” BST, 11:56 (1946). The prospectus put forward a remarkably progressive position on female education:

  “This civilized island is blessed with various laudable institutions for the promotion of Classical and Scientific Learning, and Clergymen can send their sons to the University where ample scope is afforded for those Bright talents which are so frequently found in an humble sphere of life. But hitherto no colleges, no liberal institutions of learning for their daughters where they can reap those blessings their Brethren enjoy, and it by no means unfrequently happens that we may see these pious girls busy—perhaps in a Dairy or employed in some menial occupation in a kitchen.”

  the Use of Globes: details of the curriculum are given in “Cowan Bridge School: An Old Prospectus Re-examined,” BST, 12:63 (1953).

  reading “little,” writing “pretty well”: Cowan Bridge School admission register, quoted in SHB 1, 69n.

  It is because they love us: William Carus Wilson, The Children’s Friend for the Year 1836, Vol. XIII (BPM).

  Look there!: Child’s First Tales, Chiefly in Words of One Syllable for the Use of Infant Schools and Little Children in General, Vol. 1, 1836.

  a passion of resentment: Jane Eyre, 35–6.

  the diet, the discipline, the system of tuition: CB to MW, 28 August 1848, LCB 2, 106.

  a second Dotheboys’ Hall: W. W. Carus Wilson Jr to The Halifax Guardian, 18 July 1857, SHB 4, 309.

  a bright, clever, happy little girl: Anna Andrews, former temporary superintendent of Cowan Bridge School, quoted in a letter from W. W. Carus Wilson Jr to The Leeds Mercury, 16 May 1857, SHB 4, 298. She has often been identified with “Miss Scatcherd” in Jane Eyre, though Sarah Fermi and Judith Smith have done much to clear her name in their article “The Real Miss Andrews: Teacher, Mother, Abolitionist,” BST, 25:2 (2000).

  the fury of which [Helen] was incapable: Jane Eyre, 74.

  One former pupil: unidentified, but quoted by ABN in his letter to The Halifax Guardian, 6 June
1857; see “The Cowan Bridge Controversy,” SHB 4, 302.

  Mrs. Gaskell heard numerous stories: and had to suppress some of them for the third edition of her biography; see the explanatory notes by Angus Easson in Life, 474–9.

  Another ex-pupil: reported by ABN in a letter to The Halifax Guardian, 15 July 1857, SHB 4, 311.

  naturally very delicate…is it fair to trace: W. W. Carus Wilson Jr. to the Daily News, 24 April 1857, SHB 4, 297.

  an excellent and eminently useful clergyman…so delicate that there were doubts…They all inherited consumption: quoted by W. W. Carus Wilson Jr., SHB 4, 298.

  manhandled sadistically: Life, 58.

  My career was a very quiet one: CB to WSW, ?5 November 1849, LCB 2, 279.

  for the sake of greater quiet…Of the two younger ones: Life, 61.

  How far young and delicate children: Anna Andrews quoted by W. W. Carus Wilson Jr. in a letter to The Leeds Mercury, 28 May 1857, SHB 4, 301.

  My little family had escaped: PB, “Sermon on the Eruption,” Brontëana, 212.

  black moory substance: PB’s account to The Leeds Intelligencer, 9 September 1824, LPB, 51.

  The torrent was seen coming down the glen: quoted in William Atkins, The Moor, 176.

  cowering “in a Porch”: the porch mentioned is thought to have been that of Ponden Hall; see Mrs. H. Rhodes to J. Erskine Stuart, quoted in Barker, 859 n63.

  onward rolls the dark, resistless tide: Brontëana, 207.

  I suffered to see my sisters perishing: CB to WSW, ?5 November 1849, LCB 2, 279.

  the rigid & lengthened corpse: “My compliments to the weather,” “Roe Head Journal,” TGA, 172.

  And, to this moment, I can feel: BB, “Calm and clear the day, declining,” Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë: An Edition. Vol. 3: 1837–1848, ed. Victor A. Neufeldt (New York and London, 1999), 414.

  another of my little girls…in the end…one elderly woman: PB to Mr. Marriner, 10 November 1824, LPB, 54.

  frequently espoused her cause: PB to ECG, 30 July 1855, LPB, 239.

  a hungry, good-natured, ordinary girl: Life, 61.