Emily Jane Brontë
Emily was the fifth of the six Brontë children. After the loss of her mother in 1821 and her two oldest sisters in 1825 she, Anne, Charlotte and Branwell became a close and exclusive band.
Emily was largely home schooled, though she spent six months at the Clergy Daughters' School, Cowan Bridge, aged six; three months at Roe Head School, Dewsbury, aged 17, and nine months at the Pensionnat Heger, Brussels, aged 24 to 25.
The only employment Emily ever undertook was six months teaching at Law Hill School near Halifax in 1838. Emily was only ever happy at home; she enjoyed housekeeping and the company of the family's elderly servant Tabitha Aykroyd.
Like her sisters and brother Branwell, Emily was a writer from the time she could read. She collaborated with Anne in writing poetry and stories for their imaginary world of Gondal.
She was the least willing to agree to Charlotte's publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846), and even after the publication of Wuthering Heights (1847), she declined to accompany her sisters to London and reveal the identity behind her nom de plume Ellis Bell.
Alone among the Brontë children Emily was tall – about 5 foot 6 inches – and strong. None of her correspondence survives, and the little information we do have sometimes appears contradictory. We know she liked 'military good order' in her life, and that she blended reality and fantasy in equal measure. She adored the family pets, yet had a violent temper, and disciplined them harshly. She avoided everyone outside the family, yet the characterisations in her novel are acutely observed. Her poetry is profoundly religious, yet she turned her back on religious institutions. For Emily religious fulfilment was to be found in the union of the individual spirit with the eternal spirits in nature; it was probably that conviction that informed her refusal of family help and medical assistance during her painful death from consumption.
She died on 19th December 1848, on the sofa in the dining-room, unable any longer to ascend the stairs to her bedroom.
(Extracts from The Brontë Society website)
Emily was largely home schooled, though she spent six months at the Clergy Daughters' School, Cowan Bridge, aged six; three months at Roe Head School, Dewsbury, aged 17, and nine months at the Pensionnat Heger, Brussels, aged 24 to 25.
The only employment Emily ever undertook was six months teaching at Law Hill School near Halifax in 1838. Emily was only ever happy at home; she enjoyed housekeeping and the company of the family's elderly servant Tabitha Aykroyd.
Like her sisters and brother Branwell, Emily was a writer from the time she could read. She collaborated with Anne in writing poetry and stories for their imaginary world of Gondal.
She was the least willing to agree to Charlotte's publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846), and even after the publication of Wuthering Heights (1847), she declined to accompany her sisters to London and reveal the identity behind her nom de plume Ellis Bell.
Alone among the Brontë children Emily was tall – about 5 foot 6 inches – and strong. None of her correspondence survives, and the little information we do have sometimes appears contradictory. We know she liked 'military good order' in her life, and that she blended reality and fantasy in equal measure. She adored the family pets, yet had a violent temper, and disciplined them harshly. She avoided everyone outside the family, yet the characterisations in her novel are acutely observed. Her poetry is profoundly religious, yet she turned her back on religious institutions. For Emily religious fulfilment was to be found in the union of the individual spirit with the eternal spirits in nature; it was probably that conviction that informed her refusal of family help and medical assistance during her painful death from consumption.
She died on 19th December 1848, on the sofa in the dining-room, unable any longer to ascend the stairs to her bedroom.
(Extracts from The Brontë Society website)