The Life of Charlotte Brontë 2 Volume Set: The Life of Charlotte Bronte: Volume 2 (Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 11/4/2010
EAN 9781108020510, ISBN10: 1108020518
Paperback, 340 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Published two years after the novelist's death, this two-volume work is the first and the best-known of the many biographies of the Brontë family. Written by the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) the book was instrumental in the creation of the Brontës' public image as a family set apart by literary genius and personal tragedy. Gaskell's chief source for the biography was some 350 letters between Charlotte and her friend Ellen Nussey, letters which Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, had asked Nussey to destroy after his wife's death, fearing they would damage her reputation. Volume 2 covers Charlotte's writing of The Professor, the publication of Jane Eyre, the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne, the publication of Shirley and Villette, her correspondence with Thackeray, Gaskell and Martineau, and her eventual marriage in 1854 to Nicholls, her father's curate. It concludes with a description of Charlotte's funeral.
1. Mr. Brontë afflicted with blindness, and relieved by a successful operation for cataract
2. State of Charlotte Brontë's health at the commencement of 1847
3. The 'Quarterly Review' on 'Jane Eyre'
4. Commencement and completion of 'Shirley'
5. 'Currer Bell' indentified as Miss Brontë at Haworth and the vicinity
6. An unhealthy spring at Haworth
7. Visit to Sir J. and Lady Kay Shuttleworth
8. Intended republication of 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey'
9. Miss Brontë's visit to Miss Martineau, and estimate of her hostess
10. Remarks on friendship
11. Miss Brontë visits Scarborough
12. The biographer's difficulty
13. Letters to Mrs. Gaskell on writing fiction, &c.
14. Mourners at the funeral.