Bronte Myth

Miller, Lucasta. The Bronte Myth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

In honor of British Literature month I added The Bronte Myth to November’s reading list. From the very beginning I was intrigued about this book; Much like how the Bronte sisters themselves invited an aura of intrigue from the moment they emerged on the literary scene. When they first began writing they, like any other authors out there, wanted desperately to be taken seriously. In an era where women couldn’t so much as travel alone the three sisters took on androgynous pseudonyms to in an attempt to hide their gender. Only these pseudonyms attracted too much attention once the sisters started to publish. The more they tried to hide their identities the more reviewers, critics, and the general public started to speculate on who they really were, not as authors, but as members of their society. Following the speculation came accusations and wild rumors -created to fill in the gaps of each sister’s true personality. Lucasta Miller attempts to unravel the mystery and kill the myths that surrounds the Bronte women. While Miller does an extremely thorough job I found the reading to be both dense and dry as a result.

Passage that made me think: “…Gaskell’s belief that though Currer Bell might be morbid, Miss Bronte was the soul of feminine delicacy” (p 59).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Literary Lives: the Brits” (p 146).

ps~ sorry about the huge-ness of the pic. It’s just such a beautiful cover that I couldn’t bear to shrink it!