In a brilliant combination of biography, literary criticism, and history, The Bront Myth shows how Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bront became cultural icons whose ever-changing reputations reflected the obsessions of various eras. When literary London learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights had been written by young rural spinsters, the Bronts instantly became as famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon after their deaths, their first biographer spun the sisters into a picturesque myth of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Ever since, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations of readers-Victorian, Freudian, feminist-to reinterpret them, casting them as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics. In her bewitching "metabiography," Lucasta Miller follows the twists and turns of the phenomenon of Bront-mania and rescues these three fiercely original geniuses from the distortions of legend.
In a brilliant combination of biography, literary criticism, and history, The Bront Myth shows how Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bront became cultural icons whose ever-changing reputations reflected the obsessions of various eras. When literary London learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights had been written by young rural spinsters, the Bronts instantly became as famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon after their deaths, their first biographer spun the sisters into a picturesque myth of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Ever since, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations of readers-Victorian, Freudian, feminist-to reinterpret them, casting them as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics. In her bewitching "metabiography," Lucasta Miller follows the twists and turns of the phenomenon of Bront-mania and rescues these three fiercely original geniuses from the distortions of legend.
