A Review of Defying Expectations

A review of the current exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Review of ‘Defying Expectations: Inside Charlotte Brontë’s Wardrobe’, Brontë Parsonage Museum
Emily Gallagher (Birkbeck, University of London)
19 Live: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 1(1) (2022)

As the first temporary exhibition entirely comprised of the surviving dress of one of the Brontë sisters, ‘Defying Expectations’ demonstrates how dress objects can play a major role in the curation of literary house museums. As such, the exhibition suggests new ways in which these museums might approach the biographies of some of our favourite writers and the kind of material culture they choose to collect, display, and interpret.