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Off Shadows And The Sun
"Emily Jane Bronte was born at Thornton in Yorkshire on 30 July 1818,
the fifth of six children of Patrick and Maria Bronte (nee Branwell). Two years later, her father was appointed perpetual
curate of Haworth, a small, isolated hill village surrounded by moors. Her mother died shortly after her third birthday and
she and her sisters and brother were brought up by their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. Apart from a few short periods, she remained
in Haworth. Her only close friendships were those with her brother Branwell and her sisters Charlotte and Anne; only three
perfunctory letters by her survive.
"From accounts by those who knew Emily Jane Bronte, there emerges a consistent
portrait of a reserved, courageous woman with a commanding will and manner. In the biographical note to the 1850 edition of
Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte attributes to her sister 'a secret power and fire that might have informed the
brain and kindled the veins of a hero', while Monsignor Heger, who taught her in Brussels, was impressed by her 'powerful
reason' and 'strong, imperious will'.
"Emily Jane Bronte began writing poems at an early age and published twenty-one
of them, together with poems by Anne and Charlotte, in 1846 in a slim volume titled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
At an even earlier age, she collaborated with Charlotte, Branwell, and Anne on the 'plays' and tales that developed into the
Glass Town saga. By 1834, Emily and Anne were thoroughly engaged in writing their own saga involving two imaginary islands
in the north and south Pacific, Gondal and Gaaldine. No early prose narratives survive, but several poems by Emily and Anne
refer to Gondal places and characters. Emily Jane Bronte is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, published
under her pseudonym of Ellis Bell in 1847, almost exactly a year before her death on 19 December 1848. She became ill after
attending Branwell's funeral, and died of tuberculosis after an illness of about three months."
-from Emily
Jane Bronte:
The Complete Poems
1992, Penguin Books
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Welcome to the website of
The Bronte Parsonage Museum
and The Bronte Society
On this page you'll find
an extensive collection of links
to pages in connection
with the Brontė sisters.
From Cecilia Falk,
a translator in Sweden
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Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept
him down.
"I wish I could hold you," she continued bitterly, "till we were both death! I shouldn't care what you suffered.
I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the
earth? Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to
lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not
rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!
Will you say so, Heathcliff?"
"Don't torture me till I am as mad as yourself," cried
he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.
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(from Wuthering Heights)
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