The Life of Charlotte Brontë

1857 book by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Life of Charlotte Brontë
Title page of the first edition, 1857
Author	Elizabeth Gaskell
Language	English
Genre	Biography
Publisher	Smith, Elder & Co.
Publication date	1857
Publication place	United Kingdom

The Life of Charlotte Brontë is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by English author Elizabeth Gaskell. The first edition was published in 1857 by Smith, Elder & Co. A major source was the hundreds of letters sent by Brontë to her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey.

Gaskell had to deal with rather sensitive issues, toning down some of her material: in the case of her description of the Clergy Daughters' School, attended by Charlotte and her sisters, this was to avoid legal action from the Rev. William Carus Wilson, the founder of the school. The published text does not go so far as to blame him for the deaths of two Brontë sisters, but even so the Carus Wilson family published a rebuttal with the title "A refutation of the statements in 'The life of Charlotte Bronte,' regarding the Casterton Clergy Daughters' School, when at Cowan Bridge".

Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Constantin Héger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to contemporary morals and a possible source of distress to Charlotte's living friends, father Patrick Brontë and husband. She also suppressed any reference to Charlotte's romance with George Smith, her publisher, who was also publishing the biography. In 2017, The Guardian named The Life of Charlotte Brontë one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time.

Notes

Lane 1953, pp. 178–183.
McCrum, Robert (17 April 2017). "The 100 best nonfiction books: No 63 – The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 1 January 2018.

References

Lane, Margaret. The Brontë Story: A reconsideration of Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. 1953.

External links

Complete text
The Life of Charlotte Brontë public domain audiobook at LibriVox

v t e Elizabeth Gaskell
Novels	Mary Barton (1848) Cranford (1851–1853) Ruth (1853) North and South (1854–1855) My Lady Ludlow (1858–1859) A Dark Night's Work (1863) Sylvia's Lovers (1863) Cousin Phillis (1863–1864) Wives and Daughters (1864–1866)
Short story collections	Round the Sofa (1859) Lois the Witch (1861)
Short stories	Mr. Harrison's Confessions (1851) The Poor Clare (1856) "The Haunted House" (1858) "A House to Let" (1858)
Non-fiction	"The Last Generation in England" (1849) The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)
Related	Elizabeth Gaskell house William Gaskell (husband) William Stevenson (father)

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