Emily Brontë is best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights.
Emily Jane Brontë was born in Thornton in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell on 30 July 1818. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth, where Emily’s father was perpetual curate, and it was in these surroundings that their literary oddities flourished. In childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother, Branwell created imaginary lands which were featured in stories they wrote. Little of Emily’s work from this period has survived.
In 1842, when she was 20, Emily commenced work as a governess at Miss Patchett’s Ladies Academy at Law Hill School, but left after about six months due to ill health. Later, with her sister Charlotte, she attended a private school in Brussels.
It was the discovery of Emily’s poetic talent by Charlotte that led her and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, to publish a joint collection of their poetry in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell but only two copies were sold. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first names, retaining the first letter of their first names, so Emily became Ellis Bell.
In 1847, she published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, as two volumes of a three-volume set (the last volume being Agnes Grey by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics. Although it received only mixed reviews when it first came out, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. After Emily’s death, Charlotte edited and published Wuthering Heights as a stand-alone novel and under Emily’s real name.
Like her sisters, Emily’s health had been weakened by the harsh local climate. She caught a chill during the funeral of her brother in September 1848, and, having refused all medical help, died on 19 December 1848 of tuberculosis, possibly caught from nursing her brother. She was interred in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels family capsule, Haworth, West Yorkshire, England.
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