If there’s one name you could argue really encompasses classic literature, it’s Brontë. Though Charlotte, Emily and Anne, three of the children of a clergyman from Yorkshire, had relatively short lives and tragic deaths, their brooding works, including Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall respectively, achieved immense popularity. 200 years after the birth of Charlotte Brontë, the eldest of the Brontë children who became famous, works by the women are often some of the first you think of when it comes to Victorian literature or romantic fiction.
My introduction to the Brontës happened all the way back when I was a teenager, in Year 9, when I read my gran’s copy of Wuthering Heights, written by Charlotte’s sister Emily. I can’t remember how or why I dug out or found the copy at her house. The whole Twilight phenomenon dominating young adult literature at the time likely played a part, given the references to the novel in the series and the fact there was a reissue of the novel with ‘Bella and Edward’s favourite book’ on it at the time. Maybe it was the 2009 ITV adaptation or the general amount of references to the story in popular culture as well.
“works by the [Bronte] women are often some of the first you think of when it comes to Victorian literature or romantic fiction.”
Regardless of why or how I ended up reading Wuthering Heights, however, it was the first adult classic I had ever read, and I loved it. With its foreboding gothic gloom, its melodramatic emotion and its tale of irrevocable love and revenge, it was the ideal classic for teenage me to start with. Soon after, also in Year 9, I read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and loved the story of protagonist Jane too.
“it was the ideal classic for teenage me to start with”
The Brontës have shaped my visions – as well as many others’, I’m sure – of literature from the 1800s. Yes, I really like Pride and Prejudice, and Austen is a good writer, but she seems to lack the kind of grit that the Brontë novels have. There’s just something intriguing about the dramatic lives of the three sisters and the deep, dark twists and turns in their work. One day, I would love to make a journey to Haworth, where the women lived for most of their lives, and see the places and Yorkshire moors they saw – in true literature fangirl style. It would be an ideal way to truly get a feel for the extraordinary lives of three extraordinary women.