1. Emily Bronte

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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”