Brontëdle

In last week’s blog we looked at the life of Ellen Nussey and her friendship with Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Today we’ll examine her role in the preservation and dissemination of the Brontë story, and her life after the death of the three sisters she loved.

Ellen and Charlotte Brontë were close friends from the moment they met as teenagers at Roe Head School, Mirfield, in January 1831, but there was one moment of interruption in their relationship. Charlotte accepted a proposal from her father’s assistant curate Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854, having rejected him in December 1852, and the acceptance created a rift with Ellen.

The cause of this rift can never be ascertained with any certainty, was it jealousy, disappointment, or more? Some have said that Charlotte and Ellen may have had an agreement that they would grow old together as old maids, and Ellen saw Charlotte’s engagement as a betrayal.

The two women had corresponded daily for years, but that came to a sudden end. Eventually they were reconciled, and Ellen Nussey acted as Charlotte’s bridesmaid in her marriage to Arthur on 29 May 1854. Nevertheless it seems that Ellen never liked Arthur, and later referred to him as a ‘wicked man who was the death of dear Charlotte.’

This seems to have been a harsh judgement, as Charlotte was certainly enamoured of her husband, but in one sense Ellen was right as it was Charlotte’s pregnancy that led her to die of hyperemesis gravidurum (excessive morning sickness) less than a year into her marriage.

With Charlotte’s death in 1855 the line of six Brontë siblings came to an end, and both Arthur and Ellen were determined to preserve their reputation – but in very different ways. Even whilst Charlotte was alive, Arthur had urged her to impress upon Ellen that she must burn her letters after reading them, describing her lively missives as ‘dangerous as Lucifer matches.’ Charlotte wrote to inform Ellen that she would be unable to write to her unless she agreed to this request, but thankfully for us all she resisted the command.

Charlotte Brontë’s letters are beautifully written, and very revealing of her innermost thoughts as well as her everyday life. They are also the most numerous and important source of information on the Brontë sisters that we have, and the vast majority that are now known to exist were written to Ellen Nussey. We have over 350 letters from Charlotte to Ellen, detailing everything from her relationship with Branwell, her depression after the deaths of Emily and Anne, to her taste in literature, her thoughts on politics, and how she came to be published. In short, Ellen’s collection of letters bring the Brontës to life for us, but that would all have been lost if Arthur’s exhortations before and after Charlotte’s death had been heeded.

The letters from Charlotte to Ellen were also the basis for the first biography of Charlotte Brontë, by her friend and brilliant author Elizabeth Gaskell, and they have formed the cornerstone for every Brontë biography written since. Ellen was happy to lend the letters to Mrs Gaskell, quite rightly, but unfortunately she also put her trust in some people who were less than reliable.

Ellen lived to the age of 80 and never married, but she was never short of company because her friendship with the Brontës made her famous in her own lifetime. Brontë fans would often visit her at Moor Lane House in Gomersal. Visitors include the American artist Frederic Yates who painted a wonderful portrait of Ellen Nussey as an old woman. Ellen’s visitors were sure to be regaled with glorious tales of the Brontës, and many of them also left with a memento of Charlotte, Emily or Anne that she had passed onto them.

Some exploited this generosity, and in particular a man named Clement Shorter. Shorter was made the first President of the Brontë Society, a move that the Society greatly regrets today as with hindsight he is clearly a villain of the Brontë story. Shorter worked in cahoots with a man named Thomas Wise, then esteemed a great literary collector and preserver but later imprisoned as a fraud and forger.

In the late 1880s they began to schmooze the now elderly Ellen, offering her £125 for the letters that they claimed they would preserve for posterity and use for a new biography of Charlotte from which Ellen would receive two thirds of the profit. In actuality, they were selling the letters at auction and to collectors, many in the United States of America, at a huge profit.

In these last years of her life, Ellen was in effect robbed of the letters she held so dear, and we have been damaged by Shorter and Wise too. Many of the letters and objects that they took from Ellen by their sharp practice remain in private collections, the whereabouts of some unknown, although others have been bought by the Brontë Parsonage Museum or returned voluntarily.

One thing they could not steal from Ellen, however, were her memories. And they can never take from Ellen the honour and praise she deserves from us, for her friendship and loyalty to the Brontë sisters in their lifetime and after their death.

A lot of the information that we have on Anne Brontë and her sisters comes from the primary sources of their writing and from the many letters of Charlotte Brontë, but there is another woman we have to be extremely grateful to – Ellen Nussey. Ellen met Charlotte when they were pupils at Roe Head School and became her lifelong friend; through her frequent visits to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth she also became friends with Anne and Emily Brontë. Her recollections of the sisters and their lives were central to Elizabeth Gaskell’s brilliant biography of Charlotte, and Ellen’s writing legacy proved invaluable to me when I was writing In Search Of Anne Brontë as well.

Ellen Nussey was born on April 20^th 1817 in the village of Birstall, in the wool processing area of Yorkshire’s West Riding. Her parents John and Ellen were quite wealthy, as John was a cloth merchant – then a booming trade.

She first met Charlotte Brontë in January 1831 at Roe Head in Mirfield, forming a great trio of friends along with Mary Taylor of Gomersal, a village adjacent to Ellen’s Birstall. Charlotte’s time as a pupil lasted a year, but her correspondence with Ellen would last a lifetime, and shows the deep love and affection that Charlotte had for Ellen. Charlotte often talks of how pretty Ellen is, and how perfect she is in character, a perfection that she herself feels she can never attain:

‘Don’t deceive yourself by imagining that I have a real bit of goodness about me. My darling if I were like you I should have my face Zion-ward though prejudice and mist might occasionally fling a mist over the glorious vision before me, for with all your single-hearted sincerity you have your faults. But I am not like you. If you knew my thoughts, the dreams that absorb me, and the fiery imagination that at times eats me up and makes me feel Society, as it is, wretchedly insipid, you would pity and I dare say despise me.’

Thanks to Ellen we have the description of Haworth Parsonage at a time when the sisters were teenagers in 1833 (very neat, regimented, and a little bare), of their garden (sparse but for a few blackcurrant bushes), and of Anne and Emily:

‘Emily had by this time acquired a lithesome, graceful figure. She was the tallest person in the house, except her father. Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte’s, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz, and there was the same want of complexion. She had very beautiful eyes, kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you: she was too reserved. She talked very little. She and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.

Anne, dear, gentle Anne, was quite different in appearance from the others. She was her aunt’s favourite. Her hair was a very pretty, light brown, and fell on her neck in graceful curls. She had lovely violet-blue eyes, fine pencilled eyebrows, and clear, almost transparent complexion.’

It is from this same period that we get Charlotte Brontë’s sketch of the young Ellen – a charming and pretty picture, but for the long neck that Charlotte seemed to add to everyone she drew.

Perhaps the biggest testament to Ellen’s character is that Anne and Emily both became firm friends with her, an honour afforded to very few people – especially in Emily’s case.

We have letters to Ellen not only from Charlotte, but from Anne and Emily too (although Emily’s letter is a short missive bemoaning the fact that she is a poor letter writer, and advising Ellen to wait for a better letter from Anne).

Ellen Nussey shared a lot in common with the Brontë sisters, not only a love of books and reading. She too had lost a parent when she was young, although in Ellen’s case it was a father rather than a mother. She could also be sympathetic and understanding when it came to Branwell, as she also had a brother who was a raging alcoholic. The Nusseys were a large family, Ellen was the twelfth child, and it was a tragedy they had to bear that three of Ellen’s brothers took their own life – including Henry Nussey who in 1839 proposed to Charlotte and was rejected. Henry became vicar of Hathersage, and Charlotte’s visits to the Derbyshire village to see Ellen there would provide background material for Jane Eyre.

Ellen’s closeness to the Brontes has caused particular confusion in one aspect in that a photograph once thought to be of Charlotte Brontë is in fact undoubtedly of Ellen herself. Until recently it was used as the main picture on Charlotte Bronte’s Wikipedia page, but by comparing it to known and verified pictures of Ellen we can see that it is the same woman. It is reproduced below with the picture once thought to be Charlotte on the left, and a picture of Ellen in later life on the left.

Ellen’s great kindness was shown throughout her correspondence with the Brontë sisters, as she often sent them gifts, from bonnets to medicinal crab cheese when Anne was ill. She was a visitor to Haworth on many occasions, and was there on the fateful day of January 5^th 1849 when Dr. Teale of Leeds made his diagnosis of incurable consumption in Anne Brontë. Ellen described it thus:

‘Anne was looking sweetly pretty and flushed, and in capital spirits for an invalid. While consultations were going on in Mr Brontë’s study, Anne was very lively in conversation, walking around the room supported by me. Mr Brontë joined us after Mr Teale’s departure and, seating himself on the couch, he drew Anne towards him and said, ‘My dear little Anne.’ That was all – but it was understood.’

She also accompanied Anne on her final journey to Scarborough after Anne had sent a plaintive final letter to Ellen asking her to come:

‘I know, and every body knows that you would be as kind and helpful as any one could possibly be, and I hope I should not be very troublesome. It would be as a companion not as a nurse that I should wish for your company, otherwise I should not venture to ask it.’

It is Ellen’s detailed eyewitness account of Anne’s final days in York and Scarborough that provides much more information about Anne’s final days than modern day research ever can – Ellen after all knew Anne and the Brontës far better than we can ever hope to.

Ellen Nussey was a kind, generous and intelligent woman who brought moments of light and happiness into the lives of all three Brontë sisters – for which we should be very thankful. She was the daily correspondent, the sender of ribbons, the giver of gifts, the visitor when ill, the crutch when walking, the organiser of funerals. She was in every sense a true friend, but the story of how Ellen preserved the Brontë legacy after their deaths, sometimes against the odds and against the express wishes of others, is just as important, and we’ll take a look at it in next weeks Anne Brontë blog.

‘In looking over my sister Anne’s papers, I find mournful evidence that religious feeling had been to her but too much like what it was to Cowper’, these were the words of Charlotte Brontë after the death of her youngest sister Anne, but just who was Cowper and what influence did he have on the life and writing of Anne Brontë?

William Cowper was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in 1731 and died in 1800, and yet his reputation was still huge at the time that the Brontë were writing. Cowper’s fame is rather faded now, but he was one of the most popular poets of his time, and seen as one of the most important influences on the Romantic movement epitomised by the likes of Wordsworth, Keats and Byron.

His poetry as a whole has two main themes running through it – the power of nature and the power of faith, and one of his lasting legacies is the phrase: ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ which is taken (slightly altered) from his poem ‘Light Shining Out Of Darkness’.

Cowper also put his fame to good use, becoming a prominent anti-slavery campaigner in the late eighteenth century, and his words were used by Martin Luther King Jr. during his civil rights campaigns.

We can safely assume that Cowper’s work was read and enjoyed in the Brontë household, and Anne herself left evidence of this that we’ll look at later, but it wasn’t his poetry that Charlotte was referring to in her comment at the head of this post. Cowper had two things in common with Anne (and indeed with Charlotte): they both lost their mothers at an early age, and they were both attacked by religious doubts that drove them to their mental and physical limits.

From an early age Anne Brontë was a keen biblical scholar, but she found her interpretation of the bible differed greatly from much of the church’s teaching of the day. Calvinism was an increasingly powerful faction within the Church of England. Calvinist preachers, in effect what we would think of as Puritans today, taught that sin once committed could never be expunged, and that you could even be born a sinner and condemned to the fiery torments of hell forever.

It’s difficult for us today, even those of us who have faith, to imagine the terror that hell represented in the early and mid nineteenth century. To Anne Brontë and many others, the threat of hell was a real place where people would suffer the worst kind of torments. During her years as a pupil at Roe Head, Anne dwelt more and more on thoughts of eternal damnation – would those she loved be condemned to hell, would she herself end there?

These thoughts interrupted Anne’s sleep, turned all happiness into sadness, and eventually led to a physical and mental collapse that resulted in her being sent back to Haworth from Roe Head. Having come through this crisis Anne found a new and stronger faith based upon the notion of a loving and forgiving God, and although it may sound strange to us that was a controversial theory at the time. She continued, however, to be beset by doubts and fears from time to time.
William Cowper was famous not only for his poetry, but also for the religious fears that beset him. He found it harder to overcome them than Anne did, and was committed to an insane asylum between 1763 and 1765. He had another breakdown in 1773, after having a dream in which he foresaw that he was to be punished with eternal damnation.

Was Charlotte right to think that Anne had suffered like Cowper all her life? Probably not, as although doubts did attack Anne from time to time she had the strength of faith and resilience to overcome them. Was Charlotte, again, projecting her own fears and thoughts onto Anne? After all, in a letter to her friend Ellen Nussey, Charlotte once wrote:

‘I abhor myself – I despise myself – if the Doctrine of Calvin be true, I am already an outcast.’

Certainly, Anne thought very highly of William Cowper, not only of his work but of him as a person – he had faced the same struggles, confronted the same demons that she had. It is this that led Anne to write a poem to his memory, and so we finish today’s post with Anne Brontë’s poem ‘To Cowper’.

‘Sweet are thy strains, celestial Bard;
And oft, in childhood’s years,
I’ve read them o’er and o’er again,
With floods of silent tears.
The language of my inmost heart
I traced in every line;
MY sins, MY sorrows, hopes, and fears,
Were there-and only mine.
All for myself the sigh would swell,
The tear of anguish start;
I little knew what wilder woe
Had filled the Poet’s heart.
I did not know the nights of gloom,
The days of misery;
The long, long years of dark despair,
That crushed and tortured thee.
But they are gone; from earth at length
Thy gentle soul is pass’d,
And in the bosom of its God
Has found its home at last.
It must be so, if God is love,
And answers fervent prayer;
Then surely thou shalt dwell on high,
And I may meet thee there.
Is He the source of every good,
The spring of purity?
Then in thine hours of deepest woe,
Thy God was still with thee.
How else, when every hope was fled,
Couldst thou so fondly cling
To holy things and help men?
And how so sweetly sing,
Of things that God alone could teach?
And whence that purity,
That hatred of all sinful ways —
That gentle charity?
Are THESE the symptoms of a heart
Of heavenly grace bereft —
For ever banished from its God,
To Satan’s fury left?
Yet, should thy darkest fears be true,
If Heaven be so severe,
That such a soul as thine is lost —
Oh! how shall I appear?’

The book reading world knows about the remarkable achievements of the three famous Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. There were five Brontë sisters in total however, and the oldest of them all, Maria, could possibly have become the greatest genius of them all if she hadn’t been struck down at such a tragically young age.

We don’t know the exact date of birth of Maria Brontë, but it was early in 1814 in the Yorkshire village of Hartshead where her father was then the Church of England priest. Hartshead itself is just a short walk from Roe Head School where her younger sister Anne was to be a pupil more than twelve years later.

The first Brontë child, she was named after her Cornish born mother Maria, just as the first son was named after father Patrick, although forever to be known by his middle name of Branwell. From an early age, it was obvious that the family had a true prodigy on their hands. She took a great interest in the books and newspapers belonging to her father, and Patrick later reported that by the age of nine he could converse with her on any leading topic of the day with as much freedom and pleasure as with any adult.

In many ways, Maria had to grow up fast. After the death of her mother in September 1821, the eight year old found herself the oldest of six motherless Brontë siblings. She was not only eldest sister then, she in effect became almost a surrogate mother to them. It was a role she was well suited to, as by the age of just five she had already been described as ‘grave, thoughtful, and quiet to a degree well beyond her years.’

She would read to her younger brother and sisters, with little infant Anne rocking on her knee. It was little wonder that they all doted on her, but Maria was a candle that burned brightly, fiercely, quickly. When Patrick Brontë famously put a mask on his children and asked them each a carefully tailored question, he asked Maria what was the best way of spending time. She answered: ‘By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity’, as if she knew what was coming.

In July 1824, Patrick’s three oldest daughters, Maria, Elizabeth and Charlotte Brontë set out for a new clergy daughter’s school at Cowan Bridge in what is now Cumbria. At the school one teacher, a Miss Andrews, noted her ‘extra-ordinary talents’, and yet it seems that her clumsiness or untidiness singled her out for particularly harsh treatment at what was becoming a school for dying rather than a school of learning. By early 1825, Maria was suffering from tuberculosis, and was sent home to Haworth to die. She passed away aged eleven on 6th May 1825, her sister Elizabeth also died of the condition a month later.

Charlotte was the most affected by Maria’s death. She was recreated as Helen Burns in Jane Eyre, the bright young woman who befriends Jane and is cruelly treated at Lowood to the point of death, dying asleep in Jane’s arms. Throughout their lives, both Charlotte and Patrick would vehemently assert that Helen was a faithful reproduction of Maria, and what she had to endure at the school.

Branwell too remembered his beloved eldest sister, with the Caroline of his early poem recalling his viewing of her laid out for burial:

‘She lay, as I had seen her lie

On many a happy night before,

When I was humbly kneeling by –

Whom she was teaching to adore.’

If Maria had lived who knows what would have become of her. She could perhaps have become a great a writer as her sisters, maybe even greater (if that’s possible). As with all children taken before their time, history will never know what it missed.

Anne was in many ways inured to the loss of both Maria and Elizabeth because of her age at the time, but there was one other touching monument to Maria that’s easily missed, and it comes from Emily.

Branwell, notable for being mischievous from the earliest age, would sometimes tease his sisters that he heard Maria knocking on the windows on stormy nights. This recalls the incredibly powerful scene near the beginning of Wuthering Heights, when the ghost of Cathy knocks at the window and cries:

“‘Let me in – let me in!… It is twenty years,’ mourned the voice. ‘Twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!'”

When did Emily write this scene? In mid to late 1845, twenty years after the death of her sister Maria.

In a week that saw the release of ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ it’s time to take a look not at the Bennets versus the undead, but at Jane Austen versus the Brontës.

I once asked one of the hard working guides at the Brontë Parsonage Museum what was the question they are asked more than any other. It was ‘Which of the Brontë sisters wrote Pride and Prejudice?’, followed closely by ‘Is this where Jane Austen wrote her novels?’

It seems that many people today get the Brontë and Jane Austen mixed up, and it was a comparison that the Brontës had to live with in their lifetime as well; it was as unfair then as it is today.

On a personal level there are only superficial similarities between Austen and our favourite writing siblings. Austen was an early nineteenth century writer who never married and lived with her family throughout her life. So far, so similar with Anne, Emily and Charlotte (who only married in the last year of her life). Austen was writing earlier in the century than the Brontës, however, and she came from a wealthier family and a more exalted social position. For this reason, it was much easier for Jane Austen to find the time to write, and she was relatively free from worries about her income. It could also be why, in my opinion, her novels lack the grittiness, the integral truth, found in Brontë novels.

Certainly it seems that Austen was not a hit in the book loving Brontë household. Indeed, Charlotte Brontë insisted that she had never read her works until she was urged to by the critic G. H. Lewes. She was far from impressed:

“Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point… I had not seen ‘Pride & Prejudice’ till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers – but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy – no open country – no fresh air – no blue hill – no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.”

It irked Charlotte that her books were being compared with those of a writer she had little knowledge of or regard for, and whose books she felt were completely dissimilar. It’s a comparison that persists to this day of course. Charlotte wasn’t the only Brontë to fall foul of an Austen comparison, as Anne Brontë too had a similar fate when she published fer first novel ‘Agnes Grey’. A newspaper called the Atlas wrote:

“‘Agnes Grey’ is a somewhat coarse imitation of one of Miss Austin’s charming stories.”

It’s a pity, of course, that the reviewer hadn’t found the stories so charming that he’d remembered how to spell Miss Austen’s name.

What then is the reason for the inextricable intertwining of Jane Austen and the Brontës today? Sad to say, but it must at least partly be due to the fact that they are all female authors, and yet Dickens and Thackeray, for example, are never confused. Charlotte, Emily and Anne chose male pen names because they were afraid they would not be taken seriously as female writers. How right they were, and they and females in many artistic and scientific fields are still suffering for it today.

One early twentieth century writer, however, thought it was unfair that Anne Bronte in particular was being overlooked in favour of Jane Austen. In 1924, celebrated Irish author George Moore wrote:

“If Anne Brontë had lived ten years longer, she would have taken a place beside Jane Austen, perhaps even a higher place.”

My opinion may not be the prevalent one, but in my mind Anne Brontë already has that higher place.

Anne Brontë, like her sister Emily, was a great lover of nature and animals, and this was reflected in all three of their novels. It became almost a shorthand for virtue in a character, the villains mistreated animals whilst the heroes and heroines were kind to them.

In Anne’s first novel, Agnes Grey, the governess first has to deal with the monstrous Bloomfield family, modelled on the Inghams of Blake Hall, Mirfield that she had worked for. The young Tom Bloomfield likes to torture birds, setting traps and then killing them in various horrible ways. In this he is encouraged by his father and uncle, who think that this is a proper and manly way for a boy to behave. Agnes takes a very different view, and when she finds that Tom has a nest of fledglings that he intends to torture, she drops a stone on them killing them instantly and thus sparing them further torment.

If this was modelled on real life, as much of Agnes Grey is, then we can imagine how awful it must have been to carry this act of mercy through. Anne herself hints that this really happened in her preface to the second edition of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, when she writes:

‘Agnes Grey was accused of extravagant over-colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration.’

Similarly in The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, we see the bullying, abusive, drink sodden husband Arthur Huntingdon taking his young son hunting and smearing blood on his face.

Emily Brontë, often in company with Anne, would frequently take long walks across the moors near Haworth, rescuing injured animals that she found, bringing them home and nursing them back to health. In her great novel, Wuthering Heights, she uses this same shorthand to reveal how villainous Heathcliff really is. Nelly Dean, the books co-narrator, finds the first evidence that Heathcliff has eloped with young Isabella Linton in the shape of her dogs that he has left hanging. This was his wedding gift to his new wife, and a fitting symbol of the cruelty that was to come.

On the other side of this coin, Anne uses kindness to animals to demonstrate that a character is a hero. This is apparent in the character of Edmund Weston in Agnes Grey. We see him rescuing the old woman Nancy’s cat, before it is shot. He also rescues Snap, the dog that Agnes had loved and had to leave behind when she left the employ of the Murray family, modelled on the Robinsons of Thorp Green Hall.

Snap had been sent to a rat catcher much to the horror of Agnes, but later when she is walking along Scarborough beach she is delighted to see the dog run up to her:

‘I heard a snuffling sound behind me, and then a dog came frisking and wriggling at my feet. It was my own Snap – the little, dark, wire-haired terrier! When I spoke his name, he leapt up in my face and yelled for joy. Almost as much delighted as himself, I caught the little creature in my arms, and kissed him repeatedly. But how came he to be there?’

It is then that Agnes looks around and sees Weston, the man that she had loved and had to leave behind. He has bought Snap from the rat catcher and been ever on the look out for Agnes herself. Thus starts what is a very understated, and yet very romantic, end to the novel. It is very moving as well, when we consider that Weston is undoubtedly based upon William Weightman who had been snatched from Anne by cholera five years previously.

To Anne, and Emily, a love of animals was a prerequisite for a good character, and as a lover of animals myself I certainly concur with that. This love extended beyond the page and into their real lives as well, as they had a succession of pets, from geese, named Adelaide and Victoria after the royal princesses, to cats, rabbits, pheasants, hawks and canaries, and of course their famous dogs Keeper and Flossy.

Britain is a nation of dog lovers, so they say, and that was certainly true of one nineteenth century family living high up on a remote edge of the Yorkshire moors: the Brontës. Emily and Anne Brontë, the two youngest children and always so alike in character, were especially fond of animals, and throughout their all too short lives they would have a succession of pets, many of which started off as wild animals they had found injured on their beloved moors.

It was dogs that they cherished most of all however, and the two most famous Brontë dogs show one difference between Emily and Anne. Emily had Keeper, a mastiff that was intelligent, fiercely loyal, and yet could be very aggressive when cornered. Anne had Flossy, a black and white Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who was gentle and loving, yet could be strong willed too. As often found, these dogs were reflecting their owners’ personality.

In June 1843, Anne was given the young Flossy as a present by the three Robinson girls she was then serving as a governess. This is testament to how highly the Robinson children rated their kind and quiet teacher, as was also shown by the many letters they later sent to her and their visit to Anne in the winter of 1848, just months before her death.

Anne fell instantly in love with Flossy, and she would often accompany her mistress on walks across the Haworth moors, although she sometimes got a little distracted and ran off to indulge in her favourite hobby of sheep chasing. Flossy would later become a mother, and one of her puppies was given to Ellen Nussey, who also called it Flossy.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth holds two sketches that Anne made of Flossy, both unfinished possibly because Flossy never stayed still long enough to be painted. The picture at the top of this blog was once thought to have been drawn by Charlotte or Emily, but expert analysis has now proved it to be by Anne.

Emily certainly did, however, draw Flossy in all her glory, shown below, which shows how much she had captured the hearts of the family as a while. Emily’s last act, on the night before she died, was to feed both Keeper and Flossy, even though Emily was by then so thin and weak that a sudden gust of wind coming under the door blew her off her feet and against the wall. Refusing help, she slowly regained her feet and fed the dogs.

In May 1849, Anne had to take her leave of Flossy one last time. It is said that she cradled and cuddled the dog which was passed to her in the carriage waiting to take her on the first leg of her trip to Scarborough in search of a cure for consumption. The carriage that Anne, and all others, really knew was taking her to her death. It’s easy to imagine how hard it must have been for Anne to say goodbye to the dog she had loved so much for nearly six years, the dog she had whispered secrets to that she would tell nobody else. As always, she faced this dreadful moment with calm courage.

Charlotte, depressed and despondent after witnessing Anne’s death so soon after Emily’s, wrote to W.S.Williams to explain what had happened when she returned from Scarborough to Haworth:

“The ecstasy of these poor animals [Flossy and Keeper] when I came in was something singular… I am certain they thought that, as I was returned, my sisters were not far behind – but here my sisters will come no more. Keeper may visit Emily’s little bed-room, as he still does day by day, and Flossy may look wistfully round for Anne – they will never see them again – nor shall I.”

Flossy was to outlive Anne by another five years, although all her life she would often look around for her mistress. She was looked after by Charlotte, and often taken for walks by the assistant curate Arthur Bell Nicholls, who for some reason was very keen on doing anything he could to help Charlotte. She reported Flossy’s death to Ellen, saying that no dog had had a better life nor a gentler and easier end. It’s a fitting tribute to a pet who must have brought so much joy and happiness to Anne Brontë, a woman was not to know too much of either of those commodities.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to purchase a collage showing Anne Brontë and Flossy, made by the incredibly talented artist, and Brontë lover, Amanda White. It also contains three other Brontë pets, can you spot and name them?

Every January the wonderful Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth refreshes its displays and chooses a new theme for the year. As 2017 marks the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Branwell Brontë, it’s fitting that he should be this year’s prime focus – and new exhibition Mansions In The Sky certainly doesn’t disappoint. Don’t worry though, there’s still room for Anne Brontë in the displays!

The opening months of this year have seen me so busy on writing projects (Brontë related of course) that this week marked the first opportunity I had to visit the Parsonage in 2017. As always, it was a complete pleasure akin to returning home or to meeting old friends again.

Alongside the Branwell items and features, costumes and props from the 2016 BBC drama To Walk Invisible feature strongly. I absolutely loved the drama (although I could have done with another episode or it being a little longer, as the ending seemed rushed) so it was fascinating to see the costumes up close. I was especially interested, of course, in the green dress that Charlie Murphy wore when playing Anne, and it was on display in the dining room next to Emily’s dress from the show. I felt this juxtaposition of the old and new worked well.

Simon Armitage is the man behind Mansions In The Sky, and he’s the new artistic partner for the museum. A good choice, as he is not only an excellent poet and a Brontë lover, he is also a Yorkshire man from the Colne Valley near Huddersfield (where I myself used to live, so I have to give him my seal of approval!)

One of this year’s highlights is a recreation of Branwell’s studio. The room is in semi darkness with fading painted walls and scuffed floors (don’t worry, that’s intentional). Newspapers such as the Halifax Guardian and Leeds Intelligencer are scattered around along with books, Branwell’s sketches, and bottles and paraphernalia that give a hint of Branwell’s opium addiction. In the corner is a bed with blankets strewn haphazardly across it. It’s very atmospheric, and gives you a glimpse into the mind of the tormented, overshadowed and ultimately tragic man.

So, there is a lot of Branwell on display and a lot of To Walk Invisible memorabilia, but what recognition does dear Anne get this year? I was pleased to see Anne Brontë’s sampler on display (a needlework exercise she completed in November 1848. I always find the final lines of the sampler very poignant:

‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. Anne Bronte: Finished this sampler Nov 28, 1828.’

A picture of her beloved spaniel Flossy is also on display, but it’s not the one you may be familiar with. Anne made two unfinished pictures of Flossy, one is almost finished and is often on display, but this year they show Anne’s rarely seen and less finished portrait of the dog she adored.

In a display case we also find one of the tiny book’s of Anne’s poetry – opened to a page showing one of the hymns Anne Brontë wrote – beginning:

‘My God oh let me call thee thine,
Weak wretched sinner though I be,
My trembling soul would fain be thine,
My feeble faith still turns to thee.’

Anne never needed this faith more than when she faced her own end, and one reminded of this is back for another year in the form of Anne’s blood splattered handkerchief. We also see a beautiful locket owned by Charlotte Brontë, contained within is a strand of Anne’s hair.

Well done to Simon and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, who work so hard, for curating such an excellent exhibition. Whichever Brontë you like best you’ll find something to satisfy, and as it runs throughout 2017 there’s plenty of time to catch it.

As 2016 changes into 2017, we bid goodbye to the year which marked the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth – it was a great year for Brontë lovers, and for me particularly as the way my Anne Brontë biography was beyond my wildest dreams.

Just because 2016 is over, however, doesn’t mean that the Brontë celebrations are over. In fact we’re just over a fifth of the way into a period that will mark the two hundredth birthdays of all the writing Brontë sisters (Emily’s celebration is in 2018, whilst Anne Brontë’s will be in 2020). So what about 2017 then? 2017 is the year of Branwell.

Patrick Branwell Brontë was born on June 26^th 1817, the fourth Brontë child after Maria, Elizabeth and Charlotte Brontë. He was always known as Branwell by his family – it had been his mother’s maiden name, and presumably to distinguish him from his father who was also called Patrick.

Branwell is a very complex character – was he evil, wicked? I don’t think so, although he certainly did terrible things (begging money from his family to save him from being thrown into jail, threatening that he would kill his father overnight, setting his bedroom on fire), but he was a man sinned against as well as sinning.

He lost his two eldest sisters and his mother at an early age, and I think this contributed to mental problems that would throw a black cloud of his whole life, and that would send him into the horrific depths of drink and drug addiction.

We have to see both sides of Branwell: and that’s certainly something his youngest sister Anne did. Whilst dismaying of some of his actions, his affair with Mrs Robinson is believed to be the event that led to Anne leaving her governess position at Thorp Green Hall after more than five years, she remembered his kindnesses to her as a child, and believed that he was capable of redemption. If he was, it didn’t come in this life, as he descended into a personal hell that would also impact upon his family. The books created by Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë seem even more incredible when you consider how awful Branwell was making life at the Parsonage at the time he was writing them.

Nevertheless, Branwell Brontë was a boy and man who had great potential. If he had applied himself, perhaps he could have been a painter, writer or musician of some note – his painting ‘Jacob’s Dream’ adorns this post. We can’t however pretend that Branwell had the genius of his sisters, but we do well to remember the impact he had upon them and their work.

2017 will see Branwell brought to the fore and examined in greater detail, and I know that Branwell related events are planned throughout the year in both Haworth and Thornton, his Bradford birthplace. In this Anne Brontë blog, we’ll also look at key events in Branwell’s life throughout the year, and at his paintings and sketches – some of which hold keys to what he was and how he felt.

Branwell was also prominent in the new BBC drama To Walk Invisible, which I watched with joy earlier in the week. I think overall it was very well done, although I think the recurring use of the ‘f-word’ seemed anachronistic, and I found it very odd that no mention of Charlotte’s marriage or death was made at the end.

Yes, some sections were highly dramatised and the production may have employed some artistic license – but this was a drama after all, so I have no problem with that. I thought the three actresses playing the sisters were all excellent, especially Chloe Pirrie as Emily, and I especially liked the way they depicted the close bond between Emily and Anne Brontë. I look forward to watching it again and again, and I really liked the ending as well (although I know that some found it odd).

In my opinion it needed another hour, or maybe two episodes rather than one, but it was certainly a drama that lit up the Christmas week. Happy New Year and may 2017 make your Brontë dreams come true!

Branwell Brontë died on 29th September 1849, the first in a tragic sequence that would also see his sisters Emily and Anne die within a nine month period. In the months and years leading up to his death he had become a pathetic figure, addicted to drink and to opium, begging for money to obtain his next ‘hit’ and frequently in demand from debt collectors. In a later blog we shall look into why this happened, and see how he became a real danger to himself and his family. If this image of Branwell as being mad, bad and dangerous to know was certainly true by 1849, we should also remember that to the young Anne Brontë he was often a kind and loving brother.

Patrick Brontë, as he was christened, was born in the Bradford village of Thornton on June 26th 1817, a year after his sister Charlotte. He would forever be known as Branwell, his middle name and the maiden name of his mother Maria, to avoid confusion with his father Patrick. A year after Branwell’s birth, Emily was born, and then a year and a half later came the last of the six Brontë children, Anne.

Tragedy was soon to strike Branwell and his siblings. His mother died when he was three, and Anne just one. Shortly before his eight birthday, his two eldest sisters Maria and Elizabeth both died in quick succession of tuberculosis, the disease which was to be the scourge of the Brontës. When considering his later addictions and problems, we should always remember what he had to bear in his formative years. The death of his sister Maria affected him deeply, she had become a de facto mother to him and was full of promise and genius beyond her years. Later, in his poem ‘Caroline’ he would remember seeing his beloved sister laid out for burial:

“There lay she then, as now she lies –
For not a limb has moved since then –
In dreamless slumber closed, those eyes
That never more may wake again.
She lay, as I had seen her lie
On many a happy night before,
When I was humbly kneeling by –
Whom she was teaching to adore;
Oh, just as when by her I prayed,
And she to heaven sent up her prayer,
She lay with flowers about her head –
Though formal grave-clothes hid her hair!”

From an early age Branwell felt a pressure on his shoulders. He was the only boy in the family, he would be expected to become a practical man, a breadwinner. His adult life was to show it was a role to which he was singularly unsuited.

In his childhood he formed a close bond with his three surviving sisters. It was his toy soldiers that started the tales of the ‘twelve men’. They would all four gather and invent stories that are incredibly complex for young children. He and Charlotte would eventually start to write them down in incredibly tiny books that they would stitch together, the famous and priceless books that have writing so small it can only be read with a magnifying glass.

The young Anne, always the doted upon baby of the family, would look up to her brother with a kind of awe. It was he would lead his sisters on their early excursions across the moors, proudly taking the lead as the ‘man’ of the family. He would sit Anne on his knee and tell her stories, and as they both grew a little older he would draw pictures for her. Always a talented artist, he would draw fairytale castles, and gentle countryside scenes and he would inscribe them ‘for Anne’.

Anne Brontë never forgot kindnesses done for her, she would never judge somebody harshly. Even when she saw her brother’s talents being squandered and his life wasting away, she believed that there was still hope for him, if only in Heaven. The prevailing Christian doctrine at the time was that sinners like Branwell were doomed to Hell for ever. Anne couldn’t accept this, she had her own doctrine of love and forgiveness, and she expressed this in her poem about Branwell entitled ‘The Penitent’:

“I mourn with thee, and yet rejoice
That thou shouldst sorrow so;
With angel choirs I join my voice
To bless the sinner’s woe.
Though friends and kindred turn away,
And laugh thy grief to scorn;
I hear the great Redeemer say,
“Blessed are ye that mourn.”
Hold on thy course, nor deem it strange
That earthly cords are riven:
Man may lament the wondrous change,
But “there is joy in heaven!”

Anne, remembering the kind brother who drew her pictures to brighten up the days, would also secure him employment with the Robinson family for whom she worked as a governess. It was this that would lead to Branwell’s tragic end, as we shall see in a later blog, and Anne would carry a feeling of guilt around with her because of it. It was she, she would tell herself, who had brought about the demise of the brother who had once loved her so, and who she always loved.