Original subtitles

when I was living in this road as a

child I spent a lot of time immersed in

the fantasy world of the books that I

got from the library but my top favorite

especially in the film version was

mothering Heights

you

make the world stop right here make

everything stop and stand still and

never move again make them more has

never changed you and I never change and

this was my Moors I would run around

being the wild child Cathy calling for

Heathcliff oh I was so in love with him

he was my ideal man

you

older and wiser I realized that

Hollywood had misled me they'd left a

lot out weathering hikes never was a

sentimental love story and Heathcliff is

far from the rather soapy romantic lead

Laurence Olivier portrays in the film

Emily Bronte's masterpiece is a dark

study of the wild extremes of human

obsession and my childhood heartthrob is

a vicious psychopath

Emily's older sister Charlotte wrote

another book that transfixed me

the shocking Gothic romance Jane Eyre

one of the best-selling novels of all

time

while Anne Bronte is brilliant the

tenant of Wildfell Hall scandalized

Victorian society and is now widely

regarded as an early feminist classic I

rate each of the Bronte sisters amongst

the greatest novelists I have ever read

but I am left with a question how did

three spinsters who spent most of their

life in a remote parsonage on the edge

of the Moors come to write books that I

find shocking erotic profoundly moving

and quite wonderful

[Music]

my journey starts in the yorkshire

village of health as I searched through

the life and work of the Bronte sisters

for some kind of explanation for this

family's unique genius

Patrick Bronte was appointed perpetual

curate at Howarth in 1820 and he and his

wife Mariah and six young children moved

here to the parsonage he was a self-made

man born in a tiny Shack in Ireland yes

he got to Cambridge where he got a

first-class degree just six months after

arriving in half Mariah died of cancer

leaving Patrick with six children under

the age of eight his two eldest

daughters succumbed to TB less than four

years later the four surviving children

Charlotte Emily Ann and their brother

Branwell were raised by their father at

the parsonage with the help of his late

wife sister aunt Bramwell Patrick

encouraged the remarkable creativity of

his precocious offspring this is a

little pencil drawing by Bramwell when

he was eleven years old

rod sweet each of the young Bronte

showed some promise as artists this is

really good I think it's it's a painting

by Emily of her dog she had several dogs

but this is keeper I think but

storytelling seems to have been their

great passion each week the Reverend

Bronte would prepare his sermon in the

study while upstairs the wild

imaginations of his four children would

run riot in the small bedroom where they

gathered to create exotic fan

see world's inspired in part by a

childhood gift of 12 Thai soldiers we

have lovely account by Charlotte father

buying the soldiers in returning back to

earth with them which which I can show

you you've no right a purport run will

some soldiers at Leeds I snatched up one

and exclaimed this is the Duke of

Wellington it shall be mine mine was the

bonniest and perfect in every part

Emily's was a grave looking fellow and

we called him gravy Alice was a queer

little thing very much like herself

bran will chose Bonaparte oh that's

wonderful

they would act out little plays with

soldiers and they went from acting them

out to writing them down and this is by

charlotte brontë she'd been 14 when she

wrote this and it's designed to be small

enough for the toy soldiers to read but

it has the advantage have been like

secret code amongst the children and

their father or their aunt just wouldn't

have been able to read it why was it so

secret was there with the because they

were naughty story so well as they got

older they probably not what you would

expect the vicar's children to be

writing their reading was uncensored so

they were reading by ruining all kinds

of Moffat books and everything fed into

these stories an extraordinary dream by

Lord Charles will see in this slumber I

thought I was walking on the banks of a

river which murmured over small pebbles

at the bottom gleaming like crystals

through the silver stream and the green

parts of the wild rose trees around were

unand and a mild warmth was shed from

the Sun then at its

in the blue sky huh

that's obviously from their walks isn't

bran well and Charlotte created dozens

of these little books writing about life

in a glamorous exotic realm called

angrier

it was peopled by aristocratic

characters and setting these grunt all's

with balls and all the things really I

think the Bronte's of luck to their

everyday in life their younger sisters

Emily and Anne felt excluded from the

angrier adventures so they invented a

country of their own Emily even added

their imaginary land gondol to a

geography textbook with a location in

the North Pacific I just loved the idea

of these children in this tiny room

creating these extraordinary worlds and

I'm sure this early writing work would

have developed the skills of all the

Bronte's but while Charlotte and Anne

drew on their adult experiences to

produce their later masterpieces their

sister never abandoned the story she

wrote as a child for Emily the fantasy

world that she created in gondol was

used later as the basis that the only

novel that she ever published Wuthering

Heights

but whereas the imaginary world was set

in tropical climates she set this in a

landscape that she knew very well the

wild moors that lay at the back of the

home that she lived in since she was a

toddler

[Music]

I'm retracing the route that Emily would

have followed across her beloved Moors

to the locations said to have inspired

watering heights the big remote

farmhouse where he thief makes his home

this is Emily's opening description of

that brutal windswept landscape pure

bracing ventilation they must have up

there at all times indeed one may guess

the power of the north wind blowing over

the edge by the excessive slant of the

few stunted firs at the end of the house

and by the range of Gaunt thorns all

stretching their limbs one way as if

craving alms of the Sun

Kathie's undying obsession with the

cruel Heathcliff is mirrored by her love

of this untamed wilderness and I'm sure

the author's own passion for the

landscape can be heard in Cathy's almost

blasphemous Kim to the Moors

if I were in heaven I should be

extremely miserable I dreamt I was there

once heaven did not seem to be my home

and I broke my heart with weeping to

come back to earth and the Angels was so

angry that they flung me out in the

middle of the heat on the top of

watering heights where I woke shopping

for joy

[Music]

Emily Bronte's tortured love story

continues to inspire new films musicals

opera songs and ballets David Nixon

choreographed a recent interpretation of

watering Heights for northern ballet I

sat in with David for a rehearsal of the

section where Heathcliff takes revenge

on Cathy for marrying his wealthy rival

Edgar Linton and look he taunts Cathy by

toying with Linton's sister Isabella

under her jealous gaze that was really

good

it's Hariri action you're watching as

you're touching her I know what you've

always wanted but Missy here is gonna

get it instead

[Music]

well done wonderful wonderful really

wonderful what seemed most attracted you

in the book I think they were kind of

probably two things at one point in

their youth

there was this absolute harmony between

two young people and it had to do with

the mores and how at one they all were

in that space and then the contrast to

that that as we grow up and as we make

choices how that actually destroys it

yes absolutely

it's an obsessional love affair it's

something that they have to have to

that's a lot of what we spoke about in

the rehearsal we didn't actually say a

lot of in love sort of things it was how

obsession what I just find unbelievable

is it it's so true yeah she understands

the nature not just a woman but a man

and this is a woman that had no life

experience I mean this woman's had

nothing yet she brings this truth of

life that I mean lust sex everything she

has not any of it really

Emily was only 27 when she completed

weathering Heights yet her novel tells

us so much about the darkest moments of

the human condition when Kathy is dying

the scene between her and Heathcliff is

absolutely amazing

anybody that's watched somebody they

love died will understand that that

appalling desperation of wanting to keep

the person with you

her present countenance had a wild

vindictiveness in its white cheek and a

bloodless lip and scintillating eye and

she retained in her closed fingers a

portion of locks she had been grasping

as there her companion so inadequate was

his stock of gentleness to the

requirements of her condition that on

his letting go I saw four distinct

impressions left blue in the colourless

skin

I think I find weathering is

particularly moving because I have felt

all the feelings that are in that book

particularly the sense of loss and

desperation and luckily for me great

love

[Music]

Emily expresses many of these powerful

emotions using imagery from this

majestic landscape and the Moors do seem

to have given inspiration to all three

of the Bronte sisters but in other ways

these young women were each very

different

Emily's talent seemed to come from her

Yorkshire roots and a wild imagination

but she wrote only for herself

now her older sister Charlotte was quite

different she was ambitious and

adventurous and hungry for fame

[Music]

the three Bronte girls were raised in

humble surroundings by their curate

father Patrick and their late mother

sister aunt Bramwell

Emily Charlotte and Anne would go on to

write classic Victorian novels but

before their books were published the

sister spent many years trying to find

other ways to earn money in the 19th

century most middle-class women with no

independent means had to either get

married or work as governesses and

teachers something that the Bronte

sisters did and wrote about in their

books when they were young they came as

students to this school here row head

school later Charlotte came here as a

teacher it wasn't altogether a happy

situation she wanted to be a writer but

circumstances dictated that she had to

be a teacher there's a wonderful bit

that Charlotte writes in the row head

journal am I to spend all the best part

of my life in this wretched bondage

forcibly suppressing my rage at the

idleness the apathy and most asinine

stupidity of these fat-headed oafs I

think that's when her letter must sum up

a lot of teachers attitude what she's

wanting to do is write about her

imaginary world angrier and she can't

she has to sit there and teach these

wretched children while she was teaching

at row head Charlotte wrote to the poet

laureate Robert Southey asking for his

opinion of a selection of her poems he

wrote back to her literature cannot be

the business of a woman's life and he

taught not to be the more she is engaged

in her proper duties the less leisure

she will have for it even as an

accomplishment or a recreation now you

and I I'm sure will be up in arms about

that but the point about the whole

letter is that he's actually saying to

her yes it's okay to write poetry but

don't try to be famous with your writing

write poetry for its own sake not with a

view to celebrity

but if you are the woman and living in a

vicarage you are going to have to aim

for success and we wouldn't have heard

of any of those girls if Charlotte

hadn't wanted celebrity but even for a

woman as ambitious and driven as

Charlotte brontë Salvi's letter was a

major setback

Charlotte's kept the envelope and she

wrote upon it

Sally's advice to be kept forever row

head April 21st 1837 my 21st birthday oh

really

and then at the top she's written

melpomene e and that's the muse of

tragedy when she went back to school or

she would concentrate on was doing her

duty as a teacher I mean you think that

was partly result in his letter I'm sure

it is because it closed that door for

her

the route to a literary career seemed to

be shut off for the bronty's their early

efforts in education had proved a dead

end so it was time to start out on a new

path the three sisters now all in their

20s hatched a plan they would establish

a school of their own their ever-loving

aren't Bramwell gave them the money to

set up the school and charlatan Emily

used part of it to go to Brussels to

improve their French and other subjects

so that they had better credentials

Charlotte's time in Belgium was to have

a profound effect on

[Music]

I joined a tour of the Belgian capital

run by the Brussels Bronte society to

find out more about the sisters stay in

the city Brussels was cosmopolitan city

it was also cheaper than Paris so a lot

of English people sent their daughters

to be educated here the Bronte sisters

attended services at the Protestant

Chapel that we see there and Charlotte

in particular enjoyed watching the

ladies coming out and the way they were

dressed far better dress than the

English ladies

Charlotte's interest in Belgium fashion

is certainly at odds with her reputation

as a simple country girl but more

importantly the tuition she received in

Brussels at the pensioner Asia would

transform her as a writer the personal

where the sisters are stayed and studied

was straight in the middle of this

street Charla described mr. Ajay there a

teacher as a brilliant man and she felt

that she was respected for her passion

for writing and for her willingness to

learn is it true also that we made her

economize in language he he told them

discipline the improvements in

Charlotte's writing was enormous

monsieur aj certainly helped his pupil

to develop her writing style he may also

have aroused unfamiliar passions in this

twenty seven-year-old Yorkshire woman

driving the dutiful daughter of an

Anglican minister to an extraordinary

visit to the Catholic cathedral in

Brussels a remarkable episode in

Charlotte's life happened here she felt

so bad she decided to enter the

cathedral and confess there was a letter

to Emily where she said for heaven's

sake don't tell father because he was so

absolutely against Catholicism yes of

course yes so fascinating an idea of how

desperate she must have been feeling and

she felt the need for that inde and as

she she felt she had to find comfort

somewhere even with a Catholic priest we

will never know exactly what Charlotte

said in the secret of the confessional

but there are strong clues that she may

have been experiencing the sort of

terrible emotional turmoil she would

later write about in her classic novels

[Music]

evidence of Charlotte's state of mind

can be found back in London at the

British Library in a series of letters

she wrote to Monsieur AJ after leaving

Brussels they probably the most

important relics of Charlotte Bronte

they tell us about her feelings for man

who was her mentor at a crucial point in

her life she says some very daring

things to Monsieur

she said you showed me a little interest

in Brussels I demand that you show me

the same interest now unsurprisingly

this father of five under the watchful

eye of his wife a Madame AGA does not

seem to have been very pleased to

receive these passionate letters from

his former pupil

he tore them up put them in his waste

paper basket and what I imagine is that

my dam plucked them up she has threaded

a needle and patiently sewn the pieces

of the letter together because she had

to understand the dynamic between her

husband and his star pupils and she

understood from reading these letters

that she should had nothing more to do

with the Bronte's and she refused to

have English pupils for some years can

you give me an example of why you think

that she was really in love with this

well what we have here is the last

letter she wrote to Monsieur and this is

the one litter we have that wasn't torn

up she says I must say one word to you

in English and she goes on to tell him

that she delighted in speaking in French

because it reminded her of him and she

says every word was most precious to me

because it reminded me of you I love

French for your sake with all my heart

and soul did so I think that Monsieur

never replied to this letter and by

enlarging this letter for the camera we

have discovered that that full stop is

actually in the shape of a heart so it

is it is our heart this is amazing so

she sent this message to Monsieur but I

don't think we can think of love in our

present-day sense it isn't adulterous it

isn't an affair but it's more than

friendship because for a very proper

young woman in the middle of the 19th

century she had to imagine love rather

than enacted and that imagining was

crucial for her writing

one of the great myths about the

Bronte's is that they never experience

the emotions that they express so

powerfully in their books I certainly

don't think that is true a Charlotte and

her great classic Jane Eyre in which the

young heroine has a doomed passion for

the married mr. Rochester this is Jane

when mr. Rochester is proposing to her

she thinks he's just talking about her

having to leave but I feel it's

something to do with what Charlotte

Bronte felt when she had to leave the

man she loved in Brussels I grieved to

leave Thornfield because I have lived in

it a full and delightful life

momentarily at least I have talked

face-to-face with an original a vigorous

and expanded mind

I have no new mr. Rochester and it

strikes me with terror and anguish to

feel I absolutely must be torn from you

forever I see the necessity of departure

and it is like looking on the necessity

of death I'm sure she was thinking of

her lover or her not a lover

[Music]

I think that Jane Eyre is a wonderful

novel it can drive me to tears and

laughter at the same reading and for me

that spirit has really been captured by

artist Dame Paula Rekha

oh yes that's strange one she has

produced a series of works based on

texts from the book many of the pieces

cover the cruel treatment of Jane as a

young orphan often in the house of her

aunt mrs. Reed this is marvelous mrs.

Norris they punish her by throwing her

all alone in this big room she's flat on

her tummy oh she's all crumpled hmm like

all this crumpled thus one of my

favorite this because it's just how it

was how it was for her yes has it ever

been like that Hume I felt crumpled down

scared stiff and these pictures reflect

the characters as they are written not

the more sentimental versions often

portrayed in adaptations Jane was ugly

she says herself but nine times out of

ten if you see a movie the girl is

pretty Lee ya know sort of no makeup

that's the consensus drug leaders but

you actually make no bones about it here

that is not a beautiful woman that is

Jane in Charlotte's novel Jane does

eventually find love in the form of the

aloof unattainable mr. Rochester you're

showing him with his dark sort of

glowering look yeah what do you think of

watch Esther well I think he's a pompous

twit and I think he's not kind and he's

very very nasty to women he cares about

Jane though do you not think in the end

I think he's pleased

live yellow he could have been dead

Charlotte does allow her unfortunate

heroine a happy ending after all the

passionate love and shocking gothic

carryings-on

this is what happens reader I married

him a quiet wedding we had he and I when

we got back from church I went into the

kitchen and I said Mary I have been

married to mr. Rochester this morning

Mary

bending again over the roast said only

have you miss well for sure so funny to

end up with something so casual and

nonchalant brilliant

Charlotte based her clever passionate

and witty books on her own rich and

varied emotional life

as histor emily drew on her childhood

fantasies for her only published novel

but Anne Bronte was different again her

greatest work was a campaigning novel

now seen as a groundbreaking feminist

classic

[Music]

by 1845 Charlotte Emily and Anne Bronte

were all living with their father

Patrick back in the parsonage the two

older girls had returned from Brussels

but there were no takers

for their plans school in half probably

because of its remote location the

Bronte sisters now in their late 20s and

yet to start writing their novels still

needed to find a way to earn a living

then Charlotte came upon something that

would change their lives forever

on a little writing desk like this she

found a notebook full of Emily's poems

like this one maybe even this one she

wrote I know no woman that ever lived

ever wrote such poetry before any

furious that Charlotte had invaded her

privacy she didn't even want her poetry

read but she was persuaded that they

should publish a collection of their

works this is the very first edition of

poems by Qura Ellis and Upton Bell they

decided to adopt pseudonyms because they

recognized that there was a kind of

double standard in the way writing was

reviewed and they wanted to be viewed as

right it's not particularly women

writers there's work here that I like by

Ellis nay Emily and it's good to

imagination so hopeless is a world

without the world within I doubly prized

the world where guile and hate and doubt

and cold suspicions never rise where

thou and I and Liberty have a undisputed

sovereignty it must bring some the

biggest failures in the history

publishing there were two copies sold Oh

rose by some very favorable reviews and

Charlotte sent some of the remaining

copies to authors

and it by this no sir my relatives

Ellison Upton Bell and myself have

committed the rush ACT of printing a

volume of poems the consequence

predicted half of course overtaken us

our book is found to be a drug

no man needs it or hands it in space for

year our publisher has disposed but of

two copies and by what painful efforts

he succeeded in getting rid of these two

himself only knows that's tragic but

funny as well

yeah lesser I mean she's making a joke

of it that's right when it must have

been at crushing oh Island but she was

determined and to carry on with the

publishing it had given a zest to life

having lost money on their volume of

poetry the Bronte sisters resolved to

focus their formidable energies on a

more lucrative side of the literary

business they said to work writing

novels every evening at about nine

o'clock Patrick would leave his study

wind up that clock and then make his way

to bed with him gone the three girls

would come into the dining room and

promenade around this table reading

extracts of their work to one another

this production line produced three

classic novels Emily's Wuthering Heights

and Agnes gray and Charlotte's the

professor and the first two were

accepted for publication

Charlotte's was rejected however she

just sat down and in a few weeks she

produced Jane Eyre Jane Eyre was

published first and was an instant hit

Wuthering Heights and Agnes gray

followed two months later they were less

successful but all three of the sisters

were now published novelists

their brother Branwell however was in a

desperate state as a young man Branwell

had been the golden boy of the Bronte

family he was the guiding force behind

their childhood writings had poems

published in local papers and harbored

serious ambitions to become a

professional artist here in the National

Portrait Gallery is bramwell's only

surviving painting of his three sisters

originally he was in the picture there

you can see a faint outline but for some

reason he painted himself out with a

pillar which is fortunately beginning to

face oh we know what happened it's a

slight mystery as to why he did that I

mean I think the official reason is that

it was because he thought the

composition was better without him or

maybe he just painted himself really

rather badly but I think it's an amazing

image of what was going to happen later

either through lack of ability or lack

of application Bramwell never made it as

a portrait painter and he was later

dismissed from a succession of jobs by

the time his sister started to win

famous writers he had been sacked as a

tutor seemingly because of an affair

with his employer's wife he returned

grief stricken to the parsonage where he

sank into serious alcohol and drug abuse

this is a room that eventually branwall

shared with his father what happened was

that he came back paralytic one night

and he managed to set fire to his

bedclothes and an Emily rescued him and

Patrick decided that he had to keep an

eye on him can you imagine what it was

like in this house his whole life was

disintegrating this beloved brother and

son in front of their eyes but out of it

came a wonderful book by an the tenant

of Wildfell Hall it is one of the best

studies of alcoholism and his

effect on the family and everybody

around them that I have ever read

branwall used to blame his alcoholism on

a sad affair that he had with a married

woman and it is sometimes a trait of

addiction that people are apt to blame

other people for their terrible illness

the character in waffle Hall turns on

his wife and blames her for all his bad

behavior and this is a typical passage

of that as for him for the first week or

two he was peevish and low fretting I

suppose over his dear Anna Bella's

departure that's his mistress and

particularly ill-tempered to me

everything I did was wrong I was cold

hearted hard insensate my sour pale face

was perfectly repulsive my voice made

him shudder he knew not how he could

live through the winter with me I should

kill him by inches and the tenant of

Wildfell Hall was a revolutionary

depiction of the powerlessness of a

woman in an abusive marriage and I think

it's every bit as good as the

better-known Bronte books in fact all

three sisters produced enduring

masterpieces how did it happen how was

it possible three Victorian spinsters

living in isolation on the Yorkshire

Moors award-winning playwright Polly

teal has written extensively about the

Bronte's

I joined Pali to talk about this unique

literary family at the dining room table

where so many of the Bronte classics

were produced when they're writing and

walking around this table they must have

had such a laugh and they must have

inspired one another it must have been a

kind of furnace mustn't it with the

three of them right from when they were

children because they did that with

angry and you know the books the little

tiny books and her father gave them this

extraordinary access to literature and

they read in a way that was would have

been very unusual for girls at that time

and in fact you could only go to the

local library if you are a man and so

they were had to get Bramwell to bring

the books back for them our books are

covered in flour and spatters our

bravery the library of complained not to

us we are not allowed to go there

fathers and sons only but our brother

tells us that a carrot peeling was found

lying like a bookmark by the librarian I

think none of them would have written

but for the existence of the others even

Bramwell I think they could almost smell

it off him these affairs these

adventures that he was having living

this life out there in the world whilst

they were really confined to this very

domestic world that women occupied do

you think they would have written the

books if they'd had the kind of freedom

that we have perhaps not the power of

books comes out of that repression you

know it's almost like in their writing

there was an opportunity for them to

take revenge on a world that didn't

allow them a voice and yet here alone in

this room they could say whatever they

wanted to

it seems that the safe-haven of the

parsonage and the bonds that formed

between the four Bronte children within

its walls were crucial to their art but

this was also a very unhealthy place to

live the average life expectancy in

hearth was just 25 partly as a result of

the church graveyard polluting the

drinking water as it flowed down from

the Moors

the two oldest Bronte girls Mariah and

Elizabeth had died of TB or consumption

as it used to be known as young children

in 1848 this terrible disease would

strike again at the family Branwell was

the first to succumb dying in September

that year at the age of 31

his sister Emily aged just 30 followed

only three months later and to developed

the symptoms of consumption and as her

condition deteriorated she wrote this

heartbreaking letter I wish it would

please God to spare me not only for Papa

and Charlotte's sakes but because I long

to do some good in the world

before I leave it I have many schemes in

my head for future practice humble and

limited indeed but still I should not

like them to come to nothing and myself

to have lived to so little purpose but

God's will be done

[Music]

and came here to Scarborough with

Charlotte she thought somehow it would

make him feel better she had been here

before when she was governess to her

family and she fell in love with the

place sadly her condition worsened they

couldn't get her back to her and she

died here in 18-49 aged only 29 Anne's

death was a gentle and brave one and

almost her last words were take courage

Charlotte take courage

so Charlotte was on her own she wrote it

is over Emily Bramwell and all are gone

like dreams I have watched them fall

asleep on my arm have closed their

glazed eyes I have seen them buried one

by one desperately lonely

Charlotte threw herself into her work

and less than six months after Anne's

death published a new novel surely I met

biographer Lucas Tom Miller at the red

house in gummersall model for the home

of the York family and surely to find

out how the now celebrated author would

cope with her terrible loss Charlotte

came back from Scarborough and there she

was alone with Patrick must have been a

nightmare must need to come back to hath

there's a absolutely heart-rending story

of Charlotte going down to the dining

room where previously she and her

sisters used to walk around talking

about their writing and going round and

round the table on her own really I mean

it's absolutely appalling Samsun loss

and bereavement and Charlotte was facing

further problems the Bronte sisters had

written a series of controversial novels

Jane Eyre was about the relationship

between a married man and his governess

both van's books were campaigning

attacks on conventional Victorian

society was weathering Heights was

considered immoral and ungodly when it

became known the authors of these novels

were actually women Victorian society

was scanned

a storm was brewing against the work and

the morals of the Bronte's Charlotte's

response would be to create a new work

of fiction

she republished Wuthering Heights which

gave her the opportunity to write a

short biography chol notice of her

sisters she is trying to get the public

almost to forgive them for having

written these shocking books it's a

piece of victorian spin she creates this

myth of the moors and how earth as if

that was all there was to their

inspiration she presents her sisters as

being uneducated

she says neither Emily nor Anne will

learn it when in fact they were

voracious readers you know they were

highly they speak French and they highly

they dream their lives

exactly i had already discovered that

the Bronte sisters were not the isolated

uneducated country girls of popular

imagination they enjoyed an excellent if

unconventional education and quite a

wealth of experiences for young women of

the age what I hadn't realized was that

this story was partly concocted by

Charlotte to protect the reputations of

the sisters who's lost she mourned so

deeply but it seems Charlotte may have

dealt a much more substantial blow to

the Bronte legacy she went through all

her sisters papers after they died when

she prepared some of their poetry to be

published and in some cases making

really quite substantial changes he

actually changed words she actually

changed words and more tragically it's

also possible that Charlotte destroyed

the unfinished manuscript of a possible

second novel by Emily I hope that's not

very so awful how would she have

destroyed it will we find it and is it

likely to be in somebody's attic our

thesis I think if she did destroy it she

probably would have burnt it you can be

particularly if you're insane with grief

yeah

make strange decisions can't you and

thinking they wouldn't like that and and

try and do what you think is best I

suppose that's what she was doing but

it's just tragic for us there was a

second book we will never know if Emily

wrote a second novel but Charlotte

herself produced one more book Villette

based heavily on her experiences in

Brussels she also found some brief

respite from the crippling loneliness

she had felt since the death of her

brother and her sisters in 1852 off the

Belle Nichols the cure it to Patrick in

howarth proposed to Charlotte to begin

with she wasn't particularly interested

and Patrick opposed it but Nick was won

them round and in 1854 they married in

the father's Church the villager said

that she looked like a snowdrop he was a

nice man he wasn't at all like the role

of sadistic heroes of the girls novels

but sadly after a few months Charlotte

died in the early stages of pregnancy

Charlotte

only 38 years old was laid to rest

alongside her mother her brother and

three of her sisters beneath the church

where her father served as rector for

more than 40 years I hope with all my

heart that the beautiful last paragraph

of Emily's Wuthering Heights which is

actually about the graves of Cathy and

Heathcliff and Linton could also be

applied to the graves of the Bronte's I

lingered round them under that benign

sky watched the moths fluttering among

the heath and hair bells listened to the

soft wind breathing through the grass

and wondered how anyone could ever

imagine unquiet

lumbers for the sleepers in that quiet

earth

Jack handed in Danny's phone but will it

hold the key to what really happened and

with the truth about his past in the

press can the police protect him the

drama continues in broadchurch tomorrow

at 9:00

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