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In: Biographies·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #19011.
Clement King Shorter’s work is a scholarly biography that seeks to expand the familiar story of the Brontë family with fresh documentary material. The opening pages are a detailed acknowledgment of the many private letters and manuscripts he obtained, from Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, Ellen Nussey, the Williams family, and numerous Brontë specialists such as J.J. Stead and Thomas J. Wise, followed by a structured contents list that promises a chronological tour from Patrick Bronte’s early life through the deaths of his children, and a series of chapters devoted to each sister, their friends, and Charlotte’s literary connections. The preliminary section even contrasts Shorter’s effort with Mrs. Gaskell’s celebrated 1857 biography, positioning his volume as a corrective that draws on newly released correspondence and facsimiles of diary pages.
The narrative voice is that of a late‑Victorian scholar, formal yet earnest, reflecting the period’s reverence for primary sources and a desire to set the record straight. Its style blends exhaustive footnote‑like detail with a measured, almost reverential tone toward its subjects. Readers who relish meticulous Victorian scholarship, students of 19th‑century English literature, historians of women writers, or anyone fascinated by the intricate social networks that shaped Charlotte Bronte’s life, will find this book a rewarding, source‑rich companion to more popular biographies.
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It is claimed for the following book of some five hundred pages that the larger part of it is an addition of entirely new material to the romantic story of the Brontes. For this result, but very small credit is due to me; and my very hearty acknowledgments must be made, in the first place, to the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, for whose generous surrender of personal inclination I must ever be grateful. It has been with extreme unwillingness that Mr. Nicholls has broken the silence of forty years, and he would not even now have consented to the publication of certain letters concerning his marriage, had he not been aware that these letters were already privately printed and in the hands of not less than eight or ten people. To Miss Ellen Nussey of Gomersall, I have also to render thanks for having placed the many letters in her possession at my disposal, and for having furnished a great deal of interesting information. Without the letters from Charlotte Bronte to Mr. W. S. Williams, which were kindly lent to me by his son and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Thornton Williams, my book would have been the poorer. Sir Wemyss Reid, Mr. J. J. Stead, of Heckmondwike, Mr. Butler Wood, of Bradford, Mr. W. W. Yates, of Dewsbury, Mr. Erskine Stuart, Mr. Buxton Forman, and Mr. Thomas J. Wise are among the many Bronte specialists who have helped me with advice or with the loan of material. Mr. Wise, in particular, has lent me many valuable manuscripts. Finally, I have to thank my friend Dr. Robertson Nicoll for the kindly pressure which has practically compelled me to prepare this little volume amid a multitude of journalistic duties.
CLEMENT K. SHORTER. 198 STRAND, LONDON, September 1_st_, 1896.
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