By Beth, Rebecca and Freya Life of Brontë By Beth, Rebecca and Freya

Early Life Emily Jane Brontë , (30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848). Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Bronte siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. In their leisure time the children began to write fiction at home, inspired by a box of toy soldiers Branwell had received as a gift and created a number of fantasy worlds (including 'Angria') These words featured in some of their work– all "very strange ones" according to Charlotte – and enacted about the imaginary adventures of their toy soldiers along with the Duke of Wellington and his sons, Charles and Arthur Wellesley.

Career Bronte was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell. Little of Emily's work from this period survives, except for poems spoken by characters. When Emily was 13, she and Anne withdrew from participation in the Angria story and began a new one about Gondal, a fictional island whose myths and legends were to preoccupy the two sisters throughout their lives.  With the exception of Emily's Gondal poems and Anne's lists of Gondal's characters and place-names, their writings on Gondal were not preserved. Some "diary papers" of Emily's have survived in which she describes current events in Gondal, some of which were written, others enacted with Anne.

Career Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was first published in London in 1847, appearing as the first two volumes of a three-volume set that included Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey. The authors were printed as being Ellis and Acton Bell; Emily's real name did not appear until 1850, when it was printed on the title page of an edited commercial edition. The novel's innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics. Wuthering Heights's violence and passion led the Victorian public and many early reviewers to think that it had been written by a man.  According to Juliet Gardiner, "the vivid sexual passion and power of its language and imagery impressed, bewildered and appalled reviewers." Even though it received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic.

Sequel? Although a letter from her publisher indicates that Emily had begun to write a second novel, the manuscript has never been found. Perhaps Emily, or a member of her family, eventually destroyed the manuscript, if it existed, when she was prevented by illness from completing it. It has also been suggested that, though less likely, the letter could have been intended for Anne Bronte, who was already writing The tenant of wildfell, her second novel. In any case, no manuscript of a second novel by Emily has survived.