Which Bronte is your favourite and why?

[mixedmamameansbusiness]

I am a novice and so far have only read Wuthering Heights and am almost finished with Jane Eyre.

At the moment I am going for Jane Eyre as I am a sucker for the dark, destructive love and I do love a non-happy ending, well in Cathy and Heathcliff's case anyway.

It took about 100-150 pages for me to appreciate Jane Eyre and it didnt really work for me until Mr Rochester arrived.

Based on this I am going for Emily but reserve the right to change once Anne enters my bookshelf.

So share all things Bronte.

I thought Branwell died naturally, despite various addictions? TB, like his sisters? Or have I imagined that?

Top Withens is alleged to have been the inspiration for the house Wuthering Heights. If I remember rightly, it was a farm that the Bronte's often visited. It was just a ruin 25 years ago so I imagine that it's still one, unless some well-meaning people have turned it into a visitors' centre. It's right out on the moors - I can't remember how far but I do remember that we were all knackered by the time we got up there.

There is another large house about 6 miles away that is supposed to be the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange. I do remember that we were all gobsmacked at the idea of two young children running all the way from that house up to Top Withens, as H and C did regularly.

Bramwell was an alcoholic and an opium addict, but I think he actually died of TB, like most of the others. He frequented a local pub which now trades rather well off the association.

I remember Top Withens as being like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=top+withens+pics&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=wTL&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1024&bih=649&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=XmFct3dpTbM5DM:&imgrefurl=saltairedailyphoto.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-withens.html&docid=dzobnWVpDhYG2M&imgurl=4.bp.blogspot.com/_jKnJY2a-_E8/THK8acjGbFI/AAAAAAAABno/SeOxrHP1kPE/s1600/Top%252BWithens%252BFarm%252Bnow%252Bblog.jpg&w=900&h=610&ei=NTFET-vxBoHN0QWpjYmPDw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=258&sig=102656225729385695837&page=2&tbnh=136&tbnw=213&start=12&ndsp=18&ved=0CLoBEK0DMBs&tx=100&ty=73" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this, but there are lots of old pics out there of it with a roof on - <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=top+withens+pics&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=wTL&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1024&bih=649&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=DhCjPPXX9_auDM:&imgrefurl=saltairedailyphoto.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-withens.html&docid=dzobnWVpDhYG2M&imgurl=3.bp.blogspot.com/_jKnJY2a-_E8/THK8Z9BbdJI/AAAAAAAABng/rD2VhRS2UnU/s1600/Top%252BWithens%252B%28old%29%252Bblog.jpg&w=900&h=532&ei=NTFET-vxBoHN0QWpjYmPDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=87&vpy=4&dur=1108&hovh=172&hovw=292&tx=137&ty=107&sig=102656225729385695837&page=2&tbnh=110&tbnw=186&start=12&ndsp=18&ved=0CKEBEK0DMBU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">like here.

I'm surprised so many dislike the Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I definitely wouldn't consider Shirley to be hard work; much less so than Wuthering Heights, for example.

Of all the books I'd say that Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey have the strongest feminist message (and indeed I think Wildfell Hall was very significant in its day).

But . . . I studied economics and have a particular interest in economic history, so I guess the more naturalistic novels which deal with economic/social issues are of more interest to me. I also like Mrs Gaskell, particularly Mary Barton and North & South.

Only read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights but I say Jane Eyre for me purely because I love how at the end its Jane who is the rich one and Mr Rochester is all burnt and blind yet they still have a very happy marriage.

However I will give a hat tip towards Wuthering Heights as I did also love reading that one.

Charlotte
I am so not bothered about Emily
I actually got The Tenant of Wildfell Hall from the library this week, after this reminded me of Anne's existence.

Definitely Charlotte. Villette would be one of my Desert Island books along with Jane Eyre but I'd rather eat my own feet than ever read Wuthering Heights again. Can't be doing with all that wuthering.

Does anyone want my pointless fact of the day? There was no recorded use of the name Shirley as a girl's name until Charlotte Bronte wrote the book - it was exclusively a boy's name up until the point the book was published.

Yep, Charlotte every time. I read Jane Eyre as an (early) teen when someone gave my mum a box of old books - totally gripped to the end. Loved 'Villette' as well.

Sorry Emily and Anne, but Charlotte wins!

Forgot to add that Jane Eyre is actually the prototype of every Mills & Boon - poor, plain girl tangles with handsome rich man, renounces him, suffers, and eventually bags him - though obviously vastly superior

Charlotte and Anne.

I wrote a dissertation for my English Lit degree on Anne Bronte's two novels (anyone else read Anne's other novel: Agnes Grey?) I think I called it "The Quiet Feminist" or some other such wanky title. But she really was far more radical in her feminist standpoint than the other two.

I have this very moment finished Jane Eyre - brilliant, but I am sticking with Emily for the moment, WH still works for me, but this came close, I haven't been able to put it down.

I have also been watching Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton do their thing alongside.

I read the letters of the brontes, and what came across to me was that Emily seemed to be an extremely difficult person to get along with - like a kind of hyper intellegent Kevin the Teenager who seemed to be intent on dying to prove some sort of point. Anne seemed to be a little pushed under the carpet by the other two, destined for a life of quiet domesicity, and Charlotte seemed to be a bit pushy (who can blame her) but the most connected to the rest of the world. From that I think that my favorite sister is Anne because she blindsided them, completely overturned everyone's expectations of her, and wrote about something really important 100 years before anyone else noticed that there might be something wrong with men who hit women. Go Anne, I say.

But my favorite book is Wuthering Heights, because its so effortlessly brilliant - it twists, turns, casually invents entire genres and literary techniques, the language and turn of phrase are fantastic. I would argue that it invents the idea of teenagers. I love it because it is melodramatic and soapy - exactly what a teenager would write, but it is executed better than most adult men could hope to achieve, and she managed it when she was 19. Not only did she manage it, she pulled it off with such a flourish that you would never dream of anyone but a supremely confident and experienced writer attempting to write it. My final point would be, like melodramas and soaps at their best, it's fun to read - she's not writing for an intellectual exercise - she wants the reader to enjoy it, and i love that. It is an awesome book. It also has my favorite ever quote:
"'why can't you always be a good girl, Cathy?'
'why can't you always be a good man, Daddy?'"

excellent subject, btw!

mimbleandlittlemy - fabulous trivia

And kirriemummy what a fantastic tribute to a book! Penguin should stick that on it's latest issue! You've made me want to read WH again, and obviously I'm going to have to go and pay tribute to Ann as well. Have you put that review in Mumsnet book reviews?

...slumps in chair thinking to herself 'why am I reading Russel Brand my bookywook 2 instead of something better? Because it makes me laugh but still...... I could be growing my brain.....'

One of my favourite books of all time is Jane Eyre and have read it many times. However I did really enjoy Tennant of Wildfire Hall and I can't remember if I have read Agnes Grey. I thought i had read one called The Governess by either Anne or Charlotte but can't find it listed anywhere.

I have never managed to get past the first few pages of Wuthering Heights.

Just realised "The Governess" is Agnes Grey.

I'd like a reading list in order of what Brontes I should read given that in my squalid ignorance and neglect I've only read JE and WH.

So tell me in what order I should read the other novels please in order.
Thanks

Sorry, that last illiterate post was typed while three year old chicken pox sufferer helped me type.

aww thanks Noelle! At this stage I should possibly come out and say my other favorite romantic novel is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Its about the starcrossed romance between a time travelling WW2 nurse and Jamie Fraser, a 17th century Jacobite soldier. My Booky Wook 2 is War and Peace compared to that. But, then, Jamie can handle a woman like he handles his horses... masterful yet gentle, and with a squeeze of his muscular thigh....
sigh.

ah kirriem, you have reassured me I imagined you in a massive library of books like a foxy sort of prof with the children being brought in at night so you can absent mindedly kiss the top of their heads as staff take them away so you can Think and write some more books etc.

I'm intrigued about yr low brow guilty pleasure! I don't feel quite so sordid but I just love Russell Brand, his first book made me laugh out loud and this one too, I used to listen to his podcasts, no one really uses language like he does. I don't enjoy the idea of him carnally, I ain't a girl for a Dandy, he's just funny.

Have you seen the EMily Blunt film of OUtlander? Is it acceptable or unacceptable?

oh dear, thread highjack!

My favourite is the tenant of wildfell hall so Anne is my favourite bronte

All of the above is true, except I also have turrets and staff to kiss the children. They have germs, you know......
I too love Russell Brand - He, like Anne, is a lot cleverer than people give him credit for.
There's a film??? I wonder how they manage the crucial 'baddie crushed by herd of maurauding sheep' scene? I am off to scour amazon for a copy......

I like the idea of a time travelling nurse. My guilty pleasure is Agatha Christie (only Poirot, cannpot bear Marple the hideous interfering old bag) and Catherine Cookson - I love a bit of the poor vs rich. I have highly ambitious plans to write a Cookson-esque book one day, I have it plaanned.

I was brought up in Haworth and spent a lot of my childhood wandering about the same landscapes as they did. Top Withens has indeed changed a lot: I remember when it had a roof. I was last up there eight or nine years ago; the picnic tables aren't too obtrusive but you need to defend your lunch from over-friendly local sheep! Though there were no signposts in Japanese then, the Bronte industry was alive and flourishing sixty years ago.

Would have loved to have met Emily. We know so little about her, and a lot of what we think we know was relayed through Charlotte, and is therefore probably not 100% trustworthy or objective. One thing which is utterly plain though is her sense of place - of the power of those moorland landscapes to move one's spirit. I am not a fanciful person - card-carrying Yorkshirewoman here - but Wuthering Heights expresses things about that feeling of the land in your bones and blood that it is almost pagan. I'm probably not explaining it very well.

For anyone who is interested in the Brontes generally, I can't recommend Juliet Barker's book highly enough.

has anyone actually managed to fight all the way through "Vilette"? I am suspect this is a book where no-one has actually managed to finish it. Ever. But we are too polite to say so.

Still, due largely to Jane Eyre, it has to be Charlotte.