Emily Bronte 1818 - 1848

Her Life Emily lived in a small village in the remote Yorkshire moors She had five siblings; her mother died when Emily was just two

Sent to a boarding school for the children of poor clergy, crisis marked the family when the two older girls died because of the school’s unhealthy conditions Returning home, Emily and her remaining siblings were taught by her father

Although Emily rarely left home after her experiences in boarding school, she and her siblings had rich and imaginative lives Her brother and sister created a series of book-length manuscripts containing plays they created as children Emily and her sister Anne created their own series about an imaginary island called Gondal

Emily died just a year after the publication of her first novel, Wuthering Heights She was only 30 years old

Her Work Emily’s sister, Charlotte, recognized the talent in Emily’s writing and encouraged Emily to publish her work Emily, Charlotte, and Anne published a collection of their poems under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Although the collection was not widely read, it encouraged them to each work on a novel Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, and was working on her second novel at the time of her death

Many of her poems were created for the Gondal saga and deal with love, political intrigue, rebellion, war, imprisonment, and exile Emily’s poems show a desire to break with the “constrictions of ordinary life” Her views of a visionary world identify her with the Romantic poets, particularly Byron and Shelley However, her ‘hymn-like stanzas” show her individualism with their “haunting qualities”