The Brontës: great Bradfordians

Scroll (India) quotes from Rebecca Solnit's 2019 essay Whose Story Is This?

Who gets to be the subject of the story is an immensely political question, and feminism has given us a host of books that shift the focus from the original protagonist – from Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester’s Caribbean first wife, from Dorothy to the Wicked Witch, and so forth. But in the news and political life, we are still struggling over whose story it is, who matters, and who our compassion and interest should be directed at.

The Brontës are considered 'great Bradfordians' on a list compiled by The Telegraph and Argus.

Women achieving against the odds: It was not until the late 19th century when education allowed women to come to the fore. In the 1880s Marion Greenwood became the first Bradford-educated girl to take a university degree, becoming a Cambridge don. Only at the turn of the 20th century did campaigners such as Margaret McMillan (innovation in education), Julia Varley (trade unionism), Florence White (pensions for women) and latterly Debbie Purdy (right-to-die) make their mark on national life. And of course the Brontë sisters had to use male pseudonyms to publish their classic novels. (Emma Clayton)

AnneBrontë.org has a post on 'The Local Discovery Of Jane Eyre’s Author'. Il Libraio (Italy) on what Virginia Woolf thought of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.