Emerson, Gaskell and Brontë

Today The New York Sun reviews The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters (Oxford University Press). Although the book is interesting on its own, what has caught our eye is the following reflexion by reviewer Carl Rollyson:

"In many ways, our biography is patterned after the 'lives and letters' format made popular in the nineteenth century, in which extensive quotations from the subject's correspondence are woven into a continuous narrative of the subject's life." So Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson write in the preface to "The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters" (Oxford University Press, 416 pages, $49.95). Indeed, I immediately thought of Elizabeth Gaskell's classic biography of Charlotte Brontë, in which the subject's letters dominate to such an extent that the biographer seems, at times, an editor rather than an interpreter of a life.

This impression is misleading, though, since Gaskell's selections and her diction emphasize the ladylike Charlotte and subtly dampen her subject's passionate nature, transforming her into a Victorian comestible. Messrs. Bosco and Myerson do something of the same for Ralph Waldo Emerson. They domesticate the renowned individualist, making him seem far less radical than the writers of essays such as "The American Scholar.

Maybe this is the proper time to notice this new edition of Gaskell's book.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Volume 1 and Volume 2. It's a hardback edition published by Indypublish.com and rather expensive, we must add.

Categories: In_the_News, Charlotte_Brontë, Scholar