Folio Society Brontës

Two new Folio Society editions of Brontë-related books appear these months:

The Brontës: A Life in Letters
Juliet Barker

'Oh! Those high, wild, desolate moors, up above the whole world, and the very realms of silence' Mrs Gaskell, after her first visit to Charlotte Brontë in 1853

Haworth parsonage sits above the village on the very edge of the Yorkshire moors. Windswept, treeless and bleakly beautiful, this was the landscape that nourished one of the most remarkable of all literary families, offering unfettered freedom and feeding the rampant imaginations of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother Branwell. As children they wrote voraciously, inventing whole worlds of romance and drama. As grown-ups they struggled to earn their living, whether as artist, teacher or governess, before Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall took the literary world by storm.

In A Life in Letters, award-winning biographer Juliet Barker allows the Brontës to tell the story of their triumphs and tragedies in their own words, from their close-knit childhood to their literary triumphs and the griefs that were to follow. Charlotte, vigorous and insightful, is a wonderful letter-writer, Branwell hardly less so, his character laid bare on every page as he shows off to friends or seeks to impress Wordsworth with his literary ambitions. Their mother, who died the year after Anne was born, comes alive in teasing letters to the Rev. Patrick Brontë, 'My dear saucy Pat'; while the well-known tragedy of Branwell's descent into dereliction is the more poignant for Charlotte's heartfelt anguish at his death: 'I weep for the wreck of talent, the ruin of promise.' Their voices - by turns revealing, elusive, gossipy and forthright - along with those of their devoted father, their friends and those who knew them, come alive off the page in this magnificent portrait.

* 448 Pages
* Colour frontispiece and 16 pages of black and white plates
* Size 9½" x 5¾"

And a reedition of the 1964(?) original Folio Society edition of Wuthering Heights:

• 293 Pages
• Wood engravings by Peter Forster
• Size "9" x 5¾"

Categories: Biography, Books, Wuthering_Heights