Module 7: The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne

The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef

Book Summary:

The Brontë sisters: The brief lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne follows the lives of these famous sisters and where their inspiration came from for their timeless stories. This book starts with the Brontë family moving to Haworth and almost immediately after their mother dies. Their father, a clergyman, raises the Brontë children on his own. The book follows the sisters and the other siblings as they are sent off to school. It also describes the struggles the girls go through to find work, outside of writing, that will fulfill them and help them make enough money to support themselves. The readers get to learn about the events that shaped Charlotte, Emily, and Anne’s lives and gave them inspiration to write books that are still being read today.

APA Reference of Book:

Reef, C. (2012). The Brontë sisters: The brief lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Impressions:

I thought this was a very thought provoking biography that allows us to see where the Brontë sisters got their inspiration for their books. I was very interested to read this book because I have read a few of their books. It is funny to see how events that actually happened to them would be transformed and put into their stories. I think Catherine Reef did an excellent job of showing readers what it was actually like for women during that time. Once they finished school, there really were not that many options for them besides teaching and being a governess. I think this aspect of the book would be a real eye-opener for teenage girls that are starting to think about what they would like to do once they go to college and start looking for a job. We have so many more options now. Through this book you see the struggles that the sisters dealt with and how really all they wanted to do was write. Reef also shows the relationship between the sisters, and I was surprised how encouraging the sisters were of each other’s work. I feel like there could have been a lot of room for jealousy between them, but it seemed like they really helped each other out. I also think it was great that Reef showed the good and bad that happened in the lives of the Brontë family members. I think that is so important for biographies and non-fiction books to portray life accurately. This means sometimes including details about people’s lives that are not the most flattering. I think Reef did an excellent job of showing the quirks as well as the genius of the Brontë sisters.

Professional Review:

“Reef’s gracefully plotted, carefully researched account focuses on Charlotte, whose correspondence with friends, longer life and more extensive experience outside the narrow milieu of Haworth, including her acquaintance with the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who became her biographer, revealed more of her personality. She describes the Brontë children’s early losses of their mother and then their two oldest siblings, conveying the imaginative, verbally rich life of children who are essentially orphaned but share both the wild countryside and the gifts of story. Brother Branwell’s tragic struggle with alcohol and opium is seen as if offstage, wounding to his sisters and his father but sad principally because he never found a way to use literature to save himself. Reef looks at the 19th-century context for women writers and the reasons that the sisters chose to publish only under pseudonyms—and includes a wonderful description of the encounter in which Anne and Charlotte revealed their identities to Charlotte’s publisher. She also includes brief, no-major-spoilers summaries of the sisters’ novels, inviting readers to connect the dots and to understand how real-life experience was transformed into fiction.”

The Brontë sisters [Review of the book The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by C. Reef]. (2012, August 15). Kirkus Review. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/catherine-reef/bronte-sisters/

Library Uses:

I think a great way to get teenagers and adults interested in reading this biography would be to do a library book display of all the books written by the three sisters. It would also be fun to have a movie viewing of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. The biography could be introduced before or after, along with other biographies about the Brontë sisters, and many people would probably be interested to read about the authors that wrote these great stories.