The Bronte Sisters

One of my favorite books growing up was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Something about the windswept heath and the eeriness of the story always had me sneaking away from my chores to read another chapter. It wasn’t until recently that I became intrigued by the other two sisters and their works.

Emily Bronte, known for her novel Wuthering Heights, has a slightly darker and more haunting storyline of revenge than Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Although I appreciated the book as a literary classic, it may not be an all-around crowd pleaser.

Finding myself only one sister away from having read works by all three of the sisters, I set out to read one of Anne Bronte’s stories and ended up reading both her Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Both were enjoyable- not so chilling as Wuthering Heights but not quite as fast-paced as Jane Eyre.

Overall, the Bronte sisters are most definitely worth the read, especially Charlotte’s thrilling masterpiece Jane Eyre. Their stories parallel each other in overtones that perfectly suit the Gothic novel enthusiast while adding a new depth of plot for the experimental reader.

- Beth

Fun fact: Did you know that the three Bronte sisters wrote under pen names correlating with their first names? Charlotte (born 1816), Emily (1818) and Anne (1820) Bronte became Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The sisters frequently reviewed and edited each others' work.