The Best of the Bronte Sisters

The eldest sister, Charlotte, was born in Yorkshire in 1816, followed two years later by Emily and later, Anne, in 1820. They were three of six children but sadly, their other two sisters died in childhood, shortly followed by their mother in 1821. The girls received a mixture of traditional schooling as well as home-schooling but they all experienced bouts of loneliness and isolation, often being left alone for large periods of time; they found solace in their writing, which they began at an early age. After a failed attempt at self-publishing, Anne's Agnes Grey and Charlotte's Jane Eyre were later published under a pseudonym, as all their novels were at the time, in 1847 with the latter being one of the year's bestsellers. Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Emily's Wuthering Heights were both published a year later. Tragically, their brother, Branwell, died of tuberculosis in 1848; Emily died of the same disease three months later and Anne the following year. Left with no siblings, Charlotte continued to write; she published Shirley in 1849 and Villette in 1853. A year after getting married, Charlotte too died of tuberculosis in 1855, aged just 38.