An unconventional biography discovers the real Charlotte Bronte+a5 behind the loneliness, loss, and unrequited love--a strong woman with a fierce belief in herself, creative energy, and powerful ambition, who shaped her life and transformed it into art.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this eloquent revisionist biography of English novelist Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), Gordon (Shared Lives) argues that she hid a passionate nature beneath the facade of a dutiful Victorian woman. She and her sisters Anne (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) and Emily (Wuthering Heights) penned fiction and poetry during Yorkshire evenings at the Haworth Parsonage where they lived with their dictatorial father. Although the sisters initially published under male pseudonyms, Charlotte revealed their identities after she wrote Jane Eyre (1847). Gordon draws on letters and her analysis of Charlotte's autobiographical fiction (Shirley; Villette) to reveal an ambitious writer with tart humor who raged against the constraints society placed on her sex, as well as a woman who, after two unrequited love affairs, embarked on a brief but happy marriage. Earlier accounts that portrayed Charlotte as a lonely, tragic figure, Gordon maintains, were skewed because of the morality of the times and Charlotte's grief at the deaths of her two sisters and brother Branwell. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA?After her death, Charlotte Bronte's father, husband, lifelong friends, and her first biographer set about to whitewash her character. While this may be a somewhat harsh evaluation, it does seem that the efforts of these original guardians of her legacy have served to lessen the impact of her personality and made the passionate life of Gordon's title into one befitting a proper and pious Victorian wife and daughter. In this fascinating look at her true motives and desires, Gordon shows that Charlotte continually desired to push to the limits the situation of women in Victorian life. In a readable and engrossing account, the author leads readers into the mind and even the soul of her subject. They can follow her development from a romantic, solitary child, happy only in the company of her siblings; through her life as a student, teacher, governess; and finally as a wife. YAs will come to understand why, in the end, she willingly sacrifices her art for her marriage. This is a vivid description of the place of women in Victorian society as well as an excellent biography. It includes extensive notes, a bibliography, both primary and secondary sources with much coverage of the Brontes' juvenalia, as well as photographs and sketches.?Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Enigma of Charlotte Bronte,
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This review is from: Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life (Hardcover)
I have long considered "Jane Eyre" to be my favorite book, and I have read much of Charlotte Bronte and the writing of her sisters. These three women were enigmas in their time; they wrote with voice beyond their years and experience, and created central female characters who were strong and could hold their ground with any male character, something not deemed proper in a modest Victorian lady. Hidden behind pseudonymns, they could give voice to the shape of women to come long after they lived and since Charlotte lived the longest of the three, it is through her legacy that anything about the Brontes can be known.
Lyndall Gordon has done a remarkable job with this biography. It is not a straight-forward chronological biography in the typical sense; while it concerns itself with dates and events as they unfolded, Gordon is more concerned with the woman behind these happenings. She has been able to delve into Charlotte's life and expose a portrait much more vivid than other biographies have created. So much has been said and misrepresented about Charlotte Bronte (thanks in large part to the biased writing of Elizabeth Gaskell so soon after Charlotte's death) and Gordon examines that image while weaving the fire of Charlotte Bronte's soul and writing into a new image of an icon. Gordon begins by tracing the roots of the Bronte family - the death of their mother at a young age, who left behind six children to a preoccupied father who only had time for his parsonage and his only son,(so preoccupied was Mr. Bronte that he did not know of the writing gifts his three daughters possessed until they presented him with published novels) - to the trials and tribulations of publishing, to the tragic deaths of all four of her sisters and her brother, to her unlikely marriage and success as an author. Gordon traces Charlotte's struggles at school and her exhaustion at being a governess, to her years in Brussels where her gift (and love) truly caught flame for the first time. She weaves back and forth between triumph and disillusion, success and heartache, happiness and depression, painting a picture of Charlotte Bronte as a passionate, fearless woman who defied the life laid out for her. In an age when literary pursuits were not meant for females, Charlotte Bronte turned the tide. She endured criticisms of being coarse and immoral, of being plain and undignified, of being doomed to a life of spinsterhood and illness. She rose above all of these challenges and became a mix of the heroes she had created in her novels. "Jane Eyre" may stand as her best work, but it would be amazing to know what else she might have been able to offer the world if her life hadn't been cut short.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Could Have Been Much Better,
By Lillian37 (United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life (Hardcover)
Charlotte Bronte is definitely a very fascinating person, but I found that this book focuses too much on her writings and not on her life. The author inserts Charlotte's writings too frequently. The book doesn't flow, it is too choppy. It is hard to understand because one minute you're reading about Charlotte and then the next minute you are reading something that she wrote and there isn't a smooth transition between the two. The author interprets all of Charlotte's writings as though everything she wrote was based on her life experience and Charlotte wasn't creative enough to come up with her own plots and characters apart from her own experiences. It's too subjective. I didn't enjoy it and found it hard to get through.
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