The Brontes: A Life in Letters

Don’t pay an extremely high price for this. There are books for sale on multiple platforms nowadays. I paid $14.00 for my copy instead of the price listing here for >$134.00.

Having purchased this book on a whim, I was delighted to find it so captivating. Barker lets the letters speak for themselves, only occasionally jumping in to clue the reader in on the context of the letters. The book is broken into chapters by groups of years or phases of happenings with the Brontes. The first part of the book is filled with the letters about the happenings and dreams of the Brontes. In the latter half of the book you get a strong sense of Charlotte's growing isolation as her family vanishes around her in a very brief period of time. The tragedy of this volume is that there aren't more letters from Emily, Anne, and Branwell. However, through Charlotte's letters you get a strong sense of what her siblings were like (or at least Charlotte's perception of them). I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is researching the Brontes, or anyone who is just curious, as I was. It has made me want to go back and read Barker's first book on the Brontes, as well as others.

It is one thing to read a biographical account of the terribly short lives of the Brontes, it is quite another to read Charlotte's first-hand account of losing the people dearest to her. As I read her letters, I could sense the solitude at Haworth, feel the miserable weather, and hear the hollow ticking of the clock following each passing. The book is not all somber though. I am a new fan, and this book has left an indellible impression on me.

The Brontes' lives were double distilled into fiction: once in their own writings and again in Mrs Gaskell's life of Charlotte. Juliet Barker did a wonderful job of resurrecting Patrick's reputation from Mrs Gaskell's character assasination in "The Brontes" and I do not see how this collection of letters for the general reader could be bettered. The editorial commentary is everything it should be and I think this book is a model of its kind. Incredible immediacy. I have never felt closer to Haworth Parsonage and its amazing inhabitants.

Unfortunately, the book focuses mainly on Charlotte, but only b/c she wrote the most letters. This is a fantastic edition of the Brontes letters. The letters themselves are so intriguing, it makes one wonder about the letters which have not survived. What would Charlotte, such a brilliant correspondant, have written to Arthur Bell Nicholls, the man who eventually b/c her husband? What would Emily, such a terse correspondant, have written to Charlotte while she was in Brussels. Barker attempts to balance the book by including Emily and Anne's diary papers. Patrick's letters humanize him, and Maria Branwell Bronte's letters are particularly touching.

What have us slobbering Bronte fans done to deserve the work of Juliet Barker? Her biography of the Brontes is just terrific, and with this collection of letters, Barker has topped herself. It's always difficult to review a book like this: so much of what makes the book wonderful is the quality of the letter writers themselves--and the Brontes were exceptional letter writers. But Barker's editing and her selection shine in this volume. She tells us enough background information so that we understand the correspondence, but she doesn't bog us down with a lot of details (those she put in her biography, which I also recommend).