A Gifted Brother

An alert from the Australian Brontë Association for today, May 17:

Sat 17th MAY Sarah Burns – BRANWELL BRONTË – A GIFTED BROTHER

2008 marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Patrick Branwell Brontë, the only son and fourth of Patrick and Maria Brontë’s six children. Branwell was a promising writer and artist with a rich imagination. Although he was the first of the Brontë siblings to appear in print, he would never gain money or success and was destined to live in the shadow of his three sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne. After attempts at careers as a painter, railway clerk and tutor, Branwell ended his days depressed, ill and addicted to alcohol and opium. His death on 24 September 1848 at the age of 31, from chronic bronchitis and marasmus (wasting of the body), greatly affected his family. In a letter to WS Williams of Smith & Elder on 6 October 1948, Charlotte said: “I … asked myself what had made him go ever wrong, tend ever downwards, when he had so many gifts to induce to, and aid in, an upward course … He is at rest, and that comforts us all. Long before he quitted this world Life had no happiness for him…”

Categories: Alert, Branwell Brontë, Talks