Patrick Brontë was born on a day like today in Ireland 231 years ago. So many years have passed and yet his reputation as the good father he actually was is still questioned. In an effort to try and dispel the myth around the man who brought up the 19th century Fab Four, Dudley Green - who already edited Patrick's letters a few years ago - is about to publish a new biography on him.
Patrick Brontë.
Father of Genius
Dudley Green
ISBN: 1845886259
Hardback
The History Press Ltd
£20.
Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) was the father of the famous ‘Brontë Sisters,’ Anne, Charlotte and Emily, three of Victorian England’s greatest novelists, but he was a fascinating man in his own right and not nearly such an unsympathetic character as Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë would have us believe.
Born into poverty in Ireland, he won a scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, and was ordained into the Church of England. He was perpetual curate of Haworth in Yorkshire for forty-one years, bringing up four children, founding a school and campaigning for a proper water supply.
Although often portrayed as a somewhat fobidding figure, he was an opponent of capital punishment and the Poor Law Amendment Act, a supporter of limited Catholic emancipation and a writer of poetry.
This is the first serious biography of Patrick Brontë for more than forty years.
Patrick Brontë is the man who commissioned Elizabeth Gaskell to write The Life of Charlotte Brontë, which included appalling - and false - accounts concerning him and yet, when he read the book, because it met the original goal of preserving Charlotte's reputation he said nothing about it. Isn't it time for us to discover the real man?
EDIT:Keighley News also carries an article today devoted to this biography.
Writer Dudley Green believes Patrick, who survived his daughters, was a fascinating man in his own right.
The clergyman was born into poverty in Ireland, won a scholarship to Cambridge and was ordained into the Church of England.
He was perpetual curate of Haworth for 41 years, founded a school and campaigned for a proper water supply.
Publicity for the book said Patrick was often portrayed as a forbidding and unsympathetic figure. But it adds: "He was an opponent of capital punishment, a supporter of limited Catholic emancipation and a writer of poetry." (David Knights)
Categories: Biography, Books, Patrick Brontë, Reminder
Patrick Brontë was born on a day like today in Ireland 231 years ago. So many years have passed and yet his reputation as the good father he actually was is still questioned. In an effort to try and dispel the myth around the man who brought up the 19th century Fab Four, Dudley Green - who already edited Patrick's letters a few years ago - is about to publish a new biography on him.
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