Juliet Barker is an internationally recognised expert on the Brontës and medieval chivalry. She was born in Yorkshire and has lived within a few miles of Haworth all her life. Educated at Bradford Girlsâ Grammar School and St Anneâs College, Oxford, where she gained a doctorate in medieval history, she was curator and librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth from 1983 to 1989. Her revolutionary and prize-winning biography The Brontës was the result of eleven yearsâ research in archives throughout the world. Her ability to combine ground-breaking scholarly research with a highly readable and accessible style has made her a bestselling literary biographer and medieval historian: her Agincourt was the fourth bestselling history book of 2006. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bradford in 1999 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2001, she is married with two children, and still lives in Yorkshire.
For more information, see her website, www.julietbarker.co.uk
âAn outstanding achievement, a magnificent portrait which not only contains a wealth of important material, but is also a delight to read ⦠definitive ⦠hard to imagine it ever being surpassedâ Rebecca Fraser, The Times
âA monumental book: patient, thoughtful, sustained and bound to become indispensableâ Andrew Motion, TLS
âA joy to read ⦠The Brontës is a magnificent achievement: the finest biography I have read for yearsâ Susan Elkin, Literary Review
âQuite simply the most astounding and revolutionary book about the Brontës ever writtenâ Yorkshire Post
âA splendid account of the whole Brontë family ⦠full of life and sparksâ Jane Gardam, Spectator
âRuthlessly meticulous revisionist historyâ Hermione Lee, Sunday Times
âPowerful ⦠there can be no doubt about Juliet Barkerâs contribution to Brontë scholarshipâ Janet Barron, New Statesman
âA contribution of enormous value to future generationsâ Lucasta Miller, Independent
âMagnificentâ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail
Also by Juliet Barker
Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417â1450
The Deafening Sound of Silent Tears:
The Story of Caring For Life
Agincourt: The King, The Campaign, The Battle
Wordsworth: A Life in Letters
Wordsworth: A Life
The Brontës: A Life in Letters
The Brontës: Selected Poems
Charlotte Brontë: Juvenilia 1829â35
The Tournament in England, c.1100â1400
Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and
Pageant in the Middle Ages
T HE
B RONTÃS
Juliet Barker
PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON
For James
Edward and Sophie
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
A new edition of The Brontës is long overdue. It was a revolutionary book when it was first published in 1994 and since then it has become the standard biography of this extraordinary family. Despite this, popular myths about the Brontës have proved astonishingly difficult to quash. It was therefore important to me not only that my biography should remain in print but also that it should be revised and updated so that it could not be undermined by failing to take into account the huge advances in Brontë studies which have taken place since 1994.
Two monumental works of meticulous scholarship deserve especial mention: Margaret Smithâs The Letters of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1995â2004) and Victor Neufeldtâs The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë (New York, 1997â9) provide indispensable tools for the biographer, collecting, re-dating and transcribing manuscripts scattered throughout public and private collections in Great Britain and the United States. I wish they had been available when I was struggling to date Charlotteâs letters or assemble a coherent narrative from the morass of Branwellâs juvenilia. Sue Lonoff s The Belgian Essays: Charlotte and Emily Brontë (New Haven and
For more information, see her website, www.julietbarker.co.uk
âAn outstanding achievement, a magnificent portrait which not only contains a wealth of important material, but is also a delight to read ⦠definitive ⦠hard to imagine it ever being surpassedâ Rebecca Fraser, The Times
âA monumental book: patient, thoughtful, sustained and bound to become indispensableâ Andrew Motion, TLS
âA joy to read ⦠The Brontës is a magnificent achievement: the finest biography I have read for yearsâ Susan Elkin, Literary Review
âQuite simply the most astounding and revolutionary book about the Brontës ever writtenâ Yorkshire Post
âA splendid account of the whole Brontë family ⦠full of life and sparksâ Jane Gardam, Spectator
âRuthlessly meticulous revisionist historyâ Hermione Lee, Sunday Times
âPowerful ⦠there can be no doubt about Juliet Barkerâs contribution to Brontë scholarshipâ Janet Barron, New Statesman
âA contribution of enormous value to future generationsâ Lucasta Miller, Independent
âMagnificentâ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail
Also by Juliet Barker
Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417â1450
The Deafening Sound of Silent Tears:
The Story of Caring For Life
Agincourt: The King, The Campaign, The Battle
Wordsworth: A Life in Letters
Wordsworth: A Life
The Brontës: A Life in Letters
The Brontës: Selected Poems
Charlotte Brontë: Juvenilia 1829â35
The Tournament in England, c.1100â1400
Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and
Pageant in the Middle Ages
T HE
B RONTÃS
Juliet Barker
PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON
For James
Edward and Sophie
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
A new edition of The Brontës is long overdue. It was a revolutionary book when it was first published in 1994 and since then it has become the standard biography of this extraordinary family. Despite this, popular myths about the Brontës have proved astonishingly difficult to quash. It was therefore important to me not only that my biography should remain in print but also that it should be revised and updated so that it could not be undermined by failing to take into account the huge advances in Brontë studies which have taken place since 1994.
Two monumental works of meticulous scholarship deserve especial mention: Margaret Smithâs The Letters of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1995â2004) and Victor Neufeldtâs The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë (New York, 1997â9) provide indispensable tools for the biographer, collecting, re-dating and transcribing manuscripts scattered throughout public and private collections in Great Britain and the United States. I wish they had been available when I was struggling to date Charlotteâs letters or assemble a coherent narrative from the morass of Branwellâs juvenilia. Sue Lonoff s The Belgian Essays: Charlotte and Emily Brontë (New Haven and
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