161 years ago

Branwell Brontë died 161 years ago, finding his much-needed peace at last. This year has seen him alive once again in the pages of several books dealing with his sisters in fictional tales. He's usually a secondary figure needing, nevertheless, to be treated very carefully, being after all a key figure too, bearing in mind that he was the driving force behind the 'scribblemania'. And yet, despite his own alter ego's incursions in fiction, we can hardly believe that he ever imagined himself as a character in a novel.

Branwell states in this week's weekly quote that he does not 'sigh after fame', and indeed, despite modern reappraisals, he reached fame by being the the brother of the three most famous sister-writers in the world. How would he have liked that? His sisters expected great things from him, perhaps they even imagined posterity knowing them through him.

That's one thing that can be said - for better or for worse - of all Brontës: things did never quite turn out as they expected them to.

c 1847, Branwell Brontë. Picture source.

Categories: Branwell Brontë, Reminder