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jessthanthree's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Death, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Sexism, Child death, Death of parent, and Grief
outsmartyourshelf's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
I've always been interested in reading anything about the Brontes. I grew up under two hours away from Haworth so visited the museum several times, & their tragic lives resonated with teenage me who was obsessed with all things literary & cultural from the nineteenth-century. It is still one of my favourite time periods to read about. I digress - I saw this book when a Goodreads friend added it to their page & I wondered why I'd never heard of it before. Written by Daphne Du Maurier no less.
Patrick Branwell Bronte has always been the least well known of the four surviving siblings. Yet in his early life he showed equal promise, being the main inspiration or "Genius Brannii" of their early literary exploits. Vocationally, both his father & his maternal aunt expected great things from him, unfortunately his character wasn't up to the task of being the sole heir on which the weight of family expectations rested. He seemed to tire of things easily leaving both poems & commissioned portraits half-finished. Although the loss of so many family members (mother, two older sisters, & later their aunt) affected all of them, Branwell was especially haunted by the death of oldest sister, Maria. Tragedy dogged all their footsteps & yet Charlotte, Emily, & Anne had a strength of character which Branwell didn't, though to be fair they were not allowed the opportunities to drink to excess or socialise as Branwell did.
Du Maurier obviously consulted many original sources, some of which are directly quoted from - perhaps a little too much at times. The fact that many letters & early poems were said to be destroyed is such a shame, as it means a fair amount of extrapolation has to be done. I'm not convinced the evidence is strong enough that Branwell could claim even part credit for Wuthering Heights, but I did find Du Maurier's hypothesis about the rumoured love affair with the wife of his employer, Mrs Lydia Robinson (Mrs Robinson - ha), being a cover story made more sense than the version usually found in other books.
Overall, whilst I enjoyed reading it, it didn't hold the attention as well as other books on the same subject have done.
Patrick Branwell Bronte has always been the least well known of the four surviving siblings. Yet in his early life he showed equal promise, being the main inspiration or "Genius Brannii" of their early literary exploits. Vocationally, both his father & his maternal aunt expected great things from him, unfortunately his character wasn't up to the task of being the sole heir on which the weight of family expectations rested. He seemed to tire of things easily leaving both poems & commissioned portraits half-finished. Although the loss of so many family members (mother, two older sisters, & later their aunt) affected all of them, Branwell was especially haunted by the death of oldest sister, Maria. Tragedy dogged all their footsteps & yet Charlotte, Emily, & Anne had a strength of character which Branwell didn't, though to be fair they were not allowed the opportunities to drink to excess or socialise as Branwell did.
Du Maurier obviously consulted many original sources, some of which are directly quoted from - perhaps a little too much at times. The fact that many letters & early poems were said to be destroyed is such a shame, as it means a fair amount of extrapolation has to be done. I'm not convinced the evidence is strong enough that Branwell could claim even part credit for Wuthering Heights, but I did find Du Maurier's hypothesis about the rumoured love affair with the wife of his employer, Mrs Lydia Robinson (Mrs Robinson - ha), being a cover story made more sense than the version usually found in other books.
Overall, whilst I enjoyed reading it, it didn't hold the attention as well as other books on the same subject have done.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Terminal illness and Child death
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