Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart

by Claire Harman

Overview

Charlotte Brontë famously lived her entire life in an isolated parsonage on a remote English moor with a demanding father and with siblings whose astonishing creativity was a closely held secret. The genius of Claire Harman’s biography is that it transcends these melancholy facts to reveal a woman for whom duty and piety gave way to quiet rebellion and fierce ambition. Drawing on letters unavailable to previous biographers, Harman depicts Charlotte’s inner life with absorbing intensity. Brontë’s blazingly intelligent female characters brimming with hidden passions transformed English literature, even as a heartrending series of personal losses followed the author’s literary success. Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart is a groundbreaking view of the beloved writer as a young woman ahead of her time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345803412
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	200,351
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

CLAIRE HARMAN is the author of Sylvia Townsend Warner, for which she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, as well as biographies of Fanny Burney and Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a frequent reviewer. She divides her time between New York City and Oxford, England.

www.claireharman.com

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Prologue
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Excerpted from "Charlotte Brontë"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Claire Harman.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Prologue, 1 September 1843 3

1 Becoming Brontë, 1777-1820 9

2 An Uncivilised Little Place, 1820-25 28

3 The Genii of the Parsonage, 1825-31 36

4 Among Schoolgirls, 1831-5 72

5 The Double Life, 1835-7 96

6 Labour in Vain, 1837-41 115

7 In a Strange Land, 1842 149

8 The Black Swan, 1843 174

9 Long-looked-for Tidings, 1844-5 198

10 Walking Invisible, 1845-6 225

11 That Intensely Interesting Novel, 1846-8 246

12 Across the Abyss, 1848-9 280

13 Conquering the Big Babylon, 1849-51 296

14 The Curate's Wife, 1851-5 337

Coda 379

Acknowledgements 391

Abbreviations 395

Notes 397

Select Bibliography 441

Index 445

Editorial Reviews

Seattle Times, Best Books of 2016
Kirkus Reviews, Best Biographies of 2016

“As intimate and nuanced an account of the writer’s life as we are likely to get.” —Los Angeles Times

“An engrossing, almost novelistic tale. . . . Just as Jane Eyre happily survives multiple readings, so does the story of Charlotte Brontë—particularly when in the hands of a gifted teller.” —Seattle Times

“A well-researched, wonderfully lucid . . . treatment of a most extraordinary woman. . . . Harman’s tart, understated wit and gift for quotation shine throughout. [Her biography is] perhaps the most engaging of all.” —Chicago Tribune

“A masterly biography. . . . Harman leads readers on a precipitous journey through the writer’s interior landscape. . . . Harman’s psychologically astute portrait deftly bridges Charlotte’s world and her work.” —The New Yorker

“Harman’s well-paced narrative and keen attention to the tentative and troubled way Charlotte adjusted to sudden fame make this latest version of a literary life all the more modern and captivating.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Excellent. . . . Harman writes with warmth and a fine understanding of Ms. Brontë’s literary significance. Above all, she is a storyteller, with a sense of pace and timing, relish for a good scene and a wry sense of humor.” —The Economist

“[Harman] vividly portrays a life of loneliness, anguish, tragedy, and suppressed rage in serene and elegant prose with frequent flashes of ironic humor. . . . A delightfully engaging biography.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 

From the Publisher

01/18/2016
The story of the Brontës may be well-trod, but in the hands of skilled biographer Harman (Jane’s Fame), their personalities come to life in a fresh, vigorous, and very readable fashion. Drawing on prodigious research, both old and new, Harman creates an expert portrait of life at Haworth Parsonage and of its eccentric inhabitants. At the center is Charlotte, whose Jane Eyre became a literary sensation, and who would outlive all of her siblings. It is impossible to speak of Charlotte without also telling the story of her complicated family members, especially her stern, self-absorbed father, Patrick; her talented but dissolute brother, Branwell; and, of course, her sisters and fellow novelists: strong-willed Emily (Wuthering Heights); and patient, introverted Anne (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). But Charlotte and her remarkable writings remain the focus, as Harman leads her from secluded girlhood and the imaginary world she created with her siblings to her celebrity upon the thunderclap publication of Jane Eyre (“that intensely interesting novel,” as Queen Victoria called it). In telling Charlotte’s story anew, Harman has created a work that will appeal both to readers meeting the Brontë clan for the first time and to those already steeped in their lore. Illus. Agent: Zoe Waldie, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/15/2016
In 2016 several events will celebrate the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë's birth, including exhibitions hosted by the Brontë Society. With this biography, Harman (Jane's Fame) contributes to the celebration. Many Brontëan memoirs exist, including one written shortly after the novelist's death by her friend Elizabeth Gaskell. Harman cites a number of these accounts in her comprehensive notes and bibliographic sections. The author draws heavily on recently published correspondence that had not been available to earlier biographers. These letters provide a new perspective on the renowned author of Jane Eyre, especially when Harman depicts her struggles as a teacher/governess, her unrequited passion for a Belgian professor (experiences that inspired Villette), and her heartrending descriptions of her siblings' last days. This work spans more than the 38 years of the writer's brief life, also tracing her parents' beginnings. It concludes with a passage of the increasing literary celebrity that followed Brontë's difficult death from hyperemesis gravidarum (a complication of pregnancy). Her father witnessed this fame, having outlived all six of his children. VERDICT This excellent biography makes a significant contribution to Brontëan studies and will attract readers interested in Brontë as well as British literature in general. [See Prepub Alert, 9/14/15.]—Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA

Library Journal

The Brontë sisters have been required reading on any number of school syllabi over the years, with Charlotte often a cornerstone for her revered novel JANE EYRE. This audiobook, then, will certainly become a favorite among a variety of fans, conjuring up memories of Rochester and Jane and their challenged romance. Corrie James's performance of this biography is expertly rendered, with a lovely mix of unbridled enthusiasm and reserved gravitas. She shares the various anecdotes of Brontë history with enough emotional investment to keep listeners engaged and yet sufficient seriousness to keep the narrative grounded in fact. All in all, this is an interesting audiobook for Brontë aficionados, who will be riveted by both the details and James's performance. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JULY 2016 - AudioFile

★ 2016-01-10
Accomplished biographer Harman (Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, 2010, etc.) returns with a lively account of the life of Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). After the deaths of her two older sisters in 1825, Charlotte, at age 9, was the eldest of the four surviving Brontë children. Isolated in the parsonage at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors, they built for themselves a fantasy world centered on an imaginary African kingdom; their sojourns there over the years resulted in a torrent of related prose and poetry, written solely for each other in matchbox-sized books. As they matured, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne directed their literary talents to the depictions of more realistic topics, resulting in Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and the other novels for which each ultimately became famous. Groundbreaking in many ways, their works were driven by fury at the constraints on occupational and social choices available to Victorian women and, upon their pseudonymous publications, aroused reactions ranging from astonished enthusiasm to disgust. Neither deferential nor awestruck, Harman clearly feels strong affection for these reclusive, dysfunctional siblings. She confidently makes sympathetic characters of Charlotte and her sisters, even while conceding that they were by all accounts difficult and generally unpleasant company. The author remains focused on her subject's life story, expending little space on general information about the historical setting and explaining just enough of the content of Brontë's novels that readers unfamiliar with them can understand their significance, the public's reactions to them, and the extent to which Charlotte drew upon her own experiences in their production. She vividly portrays a life of loneliness, anguish, tragedy, and suppressed rage in serene and elegant prose with frequent flashes of ironic humor; the underlying scholarship is extensive but never obtrusive. A delightfully engaging biography of a highly talented but deeply troubled prodigy of English literature.

Kirkus Reviews