by Lena Coakley
She set her stub of pencil on the envelope and began to write, knowing he was waiting for her.
Afterword
Although this book is entirely fictional, I have peppered it with references to many true incidents in the lives of the incredible Brontë family. Charlotte’s and Emily’s unhappy experiences at Clergy Daughters’, for instance, were based in fact. Charlotte always held the school responsible for the deaths of her two elder sisters, and readers of Jane Eyre will recognize parallels between it and Lowood, the school where Charlotte’s heroine suffers many abuses and deprivations.
All the major characters that the siblings write about in Worlds of Ink and Shadow were the Brontës’ creations, not mine: Zamorna, Rogue, Castlereagh, Mina, Mary Henrietta, and even S’Death. I took many liberties with them, however, as I did with the imaginary worlds that were also theirs—the Glasstown Confederacy (with its capital city of Verdopolis) and Gondal.
The Brontë siblings wrote about these imaginary worlds well into adulthood. Much of Charlotte’s and Branwell’s early work still survives, written in tiny books or on small scraps of paper in cramped handwriting. Unfortunately, almost all of Anne’s and Emily’s Gondal stories have been lost, but it’s clear that they used many of the same characters in their world, including Branwell’s favorite, Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland, aka Alexander Rogue. Some scholars theorize that it was in these early writings that Emily began to develop Heathcliff, the famous romantic antihero of Wuthering Heights.
Although they died young, all three of the Brontë sisters became published authors, writing under the pseudonyms of Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell. Only Branwell failed to live up to his potential, succumbing to consumption (tuberculosis) in his early thirties, brought about by his alcoholism and drug addiction. He is probably best known for the portrait of his famous sisters, painted when he was around seventeen, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Over time his own figure, which he had painted out, has begun to show through.
Charlotte’s first novel, Jane Eyre, was a runaway bestseller that caused a great stir in London, with many people speculating about the true identity of its author. Emily’s novel, Wuthering Heights, was more controversial, loved by some, called “coarse” and “strange” by others. Today both, along with Anne’s novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, are considered classics.
Sadly, Emily and Anne did not get a chance to enjoy their fame. They, too, developed consumption and, in what must have been a terrible year for Charlotte, died within nine months of their brother. After the death of her siblings, Charlotte revealed to the public that she and her sisters were the famous Bell brothers, and the world marveled that these mild-seeming parson’s daughters could create such passionate books.
Charlotte Brontë continued to write and publish, though none of her novels achieved the critical success of Jane Eyre. She married Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate, but died a year later at the age of thirty-eight.
The Reverend Patrick Brontë survived all six of his children.
Acknowledgments
I am a slow writer, so by the time I’ve finished a book, my writing group is usually wholly sick of it. Thank you to Paula Wing, Hadley Dyer, and Kathy Stinson for never saying this out loud, and for the many years of critiques and encouragement. Thanks also to beta readers Georgia Watterson and Anne Laurel Carter.
I read many books on the Brontës while researching this novel, but I’d like to single out two that I referred to again and again: Juliet Barker’s biography The Brontës, and Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal, edited by Christine Alexander. I’d recommend them to anyone interested in learning more about this extraordinary family.
Peggy Needham corrected my terrible French; Kate Blair weeded out all my Americanisms; and the wonderful Geoff Baines painstakingly helped me to put all of Tabby’s speech into Yorkshire dialect—and then had to be very patient with me when I took it all out again for readability, leaving just a hint of his work.
I received a grant from the Canada Council of the Arts to complete this work, for which I am very grateful.
Sarah Laycock and Ann Dinsdale of the Brontë Parsonage Museum answered all my questions and allowed me to conduct research among the rare and fascinating works in the parsonage archives.
Finally, this book would not exist without the support of four people who are so much smarter than I am: my Canadian editors, Hadley Dyer and Jane Warren (team Emily); my agent, Steven Malk, who has never failed to be there when I needed him; and my US editor, Susan Van Metre (team Charlotte), who was both patient and demanding, in exactly the right measure, and whom I hope to know for many years to come.
About the Author
Lena Coakley was born in Milford, Connecticut, and grew up on Long Island. In high school, creative writing was the only class she ever failed (nothing was ever good enough to hand in!), but, undeterred, she went on to study writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is now a full-time writer living in Toronto. Witchlanders, her first novel, was called “one stunning teen debut” by Kirkus Reviews and received an SCBWI Crystal Kite Award.