The Bronte Myth

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 Bront s 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.