The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Penguin Books Limited, 1857 - Biography & Autobiography - 494 pages

Written at the request of Charlotte Bronte's father and quoting generously from her prolific correspondence, The Life of Charlotte Bronte -- now with new editorial apparatus -- has long been recognized as a milestone in biographical writing. The marriage of biographer and subject has rarely been so fortuitous: The two women were friends, and like Gaskell's fictional heroines, Bronte lived a life of extreme self-denial, coping with sickness and death and surviving through the strength of her religious faith and moral integrity. Shaped by a novelist's imagination, Gaskell's admiring portrait of Bronte, as well as her descriptions of the people and the events that caused Bronte pain or suffering -- including the unhappy school experiences Bronte herself drew upon in Jane Eyre -- stirred controversy when the biography was first published in 1857. This text honors and preserves Gaskell's intention to re-create Bronte's "wild, sad, life, and the beautiful character that grew out of it".

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Review: The Life of Charlotte Brontë

User Review - Karolína Moravcová - Goodreads

Oh, my dear poor, little bird...ensnared in the thousands of cynical nets, social conventionalities of your ungrateful time! The bird entangled but never ceasing to struggle on with that helpless ... Read full review

Review: The Life of Charlotte Brontë

User Review - Amy Wolf - Goodreads

This is a complete hagiography. Do NOT accept this as anything resembling Charlotte's actual life. Mrs. Gaskell, a good friend, had a fixed Victorian agenda: to paint Bronte as "the ghost in the ... Read full review

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From Google Scholar

Psychoanalysis of Charlotte Brontė, as a Type of the Woman of Genius

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The Profession of the Author: Abstraction, Advertising, and Jane Eyre

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References from web pages

Elizabeth Gaskell, "The Life of Charlotte Brontë"
Mitsuharu Matsuoka's online e-text of the biography of Charlotte Bronte, written by Elizabeth Gaskell
www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ ~matsuoka/ EG-Charlotte.html

The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell. Search, Read ...
The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell. Searchable etext. Discuss with other readers.
www.online-literature.com/ elizabeth_gaskell/ charlotte_bronte/

27 - The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)
26 - The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) · 29 - The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) · 11 - The Life of ...
classiclit.about.com/ library/ bl-etexts/ egaskell/ bl-egaskell-cbronte-27.htm

The Life of Charlotte Bronte Vol 1 by ec Gaskell at Questia Online ...
The Life of Charlotte Bronte Vol 1. ... Read the complete book The Life of Charlotte Bronte Vol 1 by becoming a questia.com member. Choose a membership plan ...
www.questia.com/ library/ book/ the-life-of-charlotte-bronte-vol-1-by-e-c-gaskell.jsp

The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell (v1chap1)
The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell (v1chap1), by Elizabeth Gaskell.
ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/ b/ bronte/ charlotte/ b869zg/ v1chap1.html

JSTOR: "The Life of Charlotte Bronte" and Some Letters of ...
Yet Gaskell's own ambition is perhaps most clearly manifested in her writing of The Life of Charlotte Bronte. While doubtless feeling affection and ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0047-7729(199723%2F24)27%3A3%2F4%3C37%3A%22LOCBA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

Squashed Writers - The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth ...
The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson (Mrs. Gaskell) 1857. I: The Children Who Never Played Into the midst of the lawless yet not ...
www.btinternet.com/ ~glynhughes/ squashed/ lifecbronte.htm

The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Life of Charlotte Bronte is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. However, though quite frank in places, ...
en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ The_Life_of_Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB

Literary Encyclopedia: The Life of Charlotte Bronte
"The Life of Charlotte Bronte." The Literary Encyclopedia. 27 Jun. 2003. Accessed 14 April 2008. <http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&uid=353> ...
www.litencyc.com/ php/ sworks.php?rec=true& UID=353

BOOKRBLOG: The Life of Charlotte Bronte
The Life of Charlotte Bronte. This is an excellent biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, not just because it’s about the most unrelentingly tragic family ever, ...
bookrblog.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 08/ life-of-charlotte-bronte.html

About the author (1857)

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born in London in 1810, but she spent her formative years in Cheshire, Stratford-upon-Avon and the north of England. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell, who became well known as the minister of the Unitarian Chapel in Manchester's Cross Street. As well as leading a busy domestic life as minister's wife and mother of four daughters, she worked among the poor, traveled frequently and wrote. Mary Barton (1848) was her first success.

Two years later she began writing for Dickens's magazine, Household Words, to which she contributed fiction for the next thirteen years, notably a further industrial novel, North and South (1855). In 1850 she met and secured the friendship of Charlotte Brontë. After Charlotte's death in March 1855, Patrick Brontë chose his daughter's friend and fellow-novelist to write The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), a probing and sympathetic account, that has attained classic stature. Elizabeth Gaskell's position as a clergyman's wife and as a successful writer introduced her to a wide circle of friends, both from the professional world of Manchester and from the larger literary world. Her output was substantial and completely professional. Dickens discovered her resilient strength of character when trying to impose his views on her as editor of Household Words. She proved that she was not to be bullied, even by such a strong-willed man.

Her later works, Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Cousin Phillis (1864) and Wives and Daughters (1866) reveal that she was continuing to develop her writing in new literary directions. Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly in November 1865.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Title	The Life of Charlotte Bronte Classics Series Penguin classics
Author	Elizabeth Gaskell
Editor	Elisabeth Jay
Contributor	Elisabeth Jay
Edition	illustrated, reprint, revised
Publisher	Penguin Books Limited, 1857
ISBN	0140434933, 9780140434934
Length	494 pages
Subjects	Literary Criticism › European › English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Biography & Autobiography / General Biography & Autobiography / Literary Literary Collections / Essays Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / Women Authors

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The Life of Charlotte Bronte

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About the author (1857)

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