The Three Brontës
Public-domain ebook
The Three Brontës
by May Sinclair
Language: en1,197 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Biographies·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #11698.
About this book
May Sinclair’s work is a scholarly essay that surveys the lives and literary output of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The opening pages reveal a dense network of acknowledgments to contemporaries who supplied source material, Clement K. Shorter’s copyright collection, editions of Emily’s poems, and translations by Alfred Sutro and Arthur Symph‑on, indicating that Sinclair’s study leans heavily on primary texts and earlier criticism. She frames the book as an expansion of a brief essay suggested by Thomas Seccombe, explaining how the project grew “insidiously” as new criticisms opened old questions. Sinclair’s introduction sketches the Brontë family’s origins in Haworth, the stark landscape that shaped their imagination, and the complex, often contradictory portrait of their father, Reverend Patrick Brontë, whose temperament and evangelical background she re‑examines against the backdrop of Victorian expectations.
The tone is that of an early‑20th‑century literary historian, combining earnest reverence with a self‑aware, sometimes wry, critique of past biographers. Sinclair’s prose is formal yet conversational, peppered with occasional asides that reveal her personal struggle to add anything new to the already‑well‑trodden scholarship. Readers who enjoy meticulous biographical research, the interplay of literary criticism and cultural context, and a voice that acknowledges both the weight of tradition and the desire to clear away “rubbish” surrounding the Brontës will find this book rewarding.
Who appears in The Three Brontës
- Charlotte BrontëDark hair pulled back, high forehead, austere Victorian dress, solemn expression, 19th‑century portrait
- Emily BrontëThick dark hair, intense eyes, simple shawl‑clad dress, brooding gaze, early‑Victorian style
- Anne BrontëLight brown hair, gentle smile, modest Victorian gown, soft lighting, scholarly demeanor
The opening · free to read
Prefatory Note
My thanks are due, first and chiefly, to Mr. Clement K. Shorter who placed all his copyright material at my disposal; and to Mr. G.M. Williamson and Mr. Robert H. Dodd, of New York, for allowing me to draw so largely from the Poems of Emily Brontë, published by Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Co. in 1902; also to Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, the publishers of the Complete Poems of Emily Brontë, edited by Mr. Shorter; and to Mr. Alfred Sutro for permission to use his translation of Wisdom and Destiny. Lastly, and somewhat late, to Mr. Arthur Symons for his translation from St. John of the Cross. If I have borrowed from him more than I had any right to without his leave, I hope he will forgive me.
MAY SINCLAIR.
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