Happy 196th, Emily

196 years ago Emily Brontë was born in Thornton. Hers tends to be the thinnest biographies on Brontë bookshelves, and yet there's something intriguing about her literary output that sends people looking for biographies of her in hopes that they can help explain how a provincial - albeit highly learned, despite what Charlotte would have the world believe - young woman could have written such words. (And we are pretty sure that this 'mystery' is a two way street. Emily may have scorned the public, but we are quite confident that she would have been quite amazed at what Wuthering Heights particularly has achived in terms of readership, influences, literary status, etc.).

And yet that is the magic and mightiness of the pen. If ever anyone showed that to the world, that was undoubtedly 'our Emily'. No explanations are really needed - a good book and good poetry are always self-explanatory.

Happy birthday!

(Post originally published in 2010)

EDIT:
Blogs/Websites celebrating Emily Brontë's birthday: Ferriz (México), @BookLoversGift, Il Cenacolo Inteluattale (Italy), @Literature & Books, @Red Rose Chain (with free tickets for a Wuthering Heights performance in Suffolk), Real Simple, @St Helens Libraries, @National Portrait Gallery, the Brontë Sisters, Lighthouse Books, Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Jane Jazz: writer's block, The Paris Review (who thinks that Emily Brontë's diary papers are kind of dull (!)), Libreriamo (Italy), Makers...

And, of course, the @BronteParsonage:

Here's the cake we enjoyed to celebrate the anniversary of #EmilyBronte 's birthday! 196 today! pic.twitter.com/Trv5JZ9V3P
— Bronte Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) July 30, 2014