Routledge Revivals brings back a pioneering revisionist biography of Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1948:
By G. Elsie Harrison
Routledge (Routledge Revivals)
ISBN 9781041003250
June 2025
Originally published in 1948, The Clue to the Brontës was written in part as response to a previous biography of Charlotte Brontë by Mrs Gaskell. The author argues that Gaskell's biography gets it all wrong. Harrison draws connections between Patrick Brontë and John Wesley. She finds Gaskell paid too much attention to gossip and did not verify her facts.
The influence of John Wesley and the revival of evangelical religion is seen as a force in the Romantic Movement's impact on the English novel. The same influence is here seen to be at work in the writings of the Brontës, including those of their father Patrick.
This a fascinating read and highlights the Wesleyan aspects of the Brontës that is often ignored. Mrs.Brontë was a Methodist and Patrick was close to Evangelical ministers as a young man in Ireland. They were the ones who set his feet towards Cambridge. The first wild tales the young Brontës read were in Aunt's Methodist magazines.
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