Charlotte Brontė: A Life - Softcover

Harman, Claire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241963664 ISBN 13: 9780241963661

Publisher: Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

The definitive biography of an extraordinary novelist, by acclaimed literary biographer Claire Harman

'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day . . .' With these words Charlotte Brontė began Jane Eyre and changed English literature irrevocably.

Claire Harman's landmark biography provides a bold new view of one of Britain's best loved writers, uncovering an inner life that touched the furthest extremes of human emotion.

Harman shows us an intense and troubled young woman from an astonishingly creative family, whose early works were produced in total secrecy. Struggling against the conventional limitations of both life and literature, Charlotte created a new kind of heroine which both shocked and inspired her Victorian contemporaries. Love, loss, ambition and heartbreak: the anonymous author poured everything into her ground-breaking books, but lived it first.

'Harman [is] a master-storyteller in her own right. Her account of Bronte's life is a level-headed, highly readable and always intelligent. A delight from start to finish' Sunday Times

'Subtle, measured. Full of insight into Bronte's fiery intellect as well as the tragic intensity of her experience' Helen Dunmore, Observer

'Three rounds of applause... a superb retelling of Charlotte's story' Mark Bostridge, Spectator

About this title

Review:

Harman's sane, unshowy re-telling is exactly right for the bicentenary next April. The result is a retooled classic biographical narrative, shipshape and serviceable for the next 200 years (The Guardian)

Finely judged and authoritative (Sunday Times Book of the Week)

Elegantly written, consistently perceptive...[Harman] succeeds in bringing Charlotte back to life in all her spiky vulnerability (Daily Mail Book of the Week)

This is a comprehensive biography to enjoy and admire. Harman writes well and she is a fine and sensitive critic (The Times)

Harman... portrays Bronte's complexity and dark genius in elegant prose with deep human sympathy (The Lady)

Superb retelling of Charlotte's story (...) admirably concise (The Spectator)

Harman tells [Charlotte's] story with quick wit, a sharp sympathy, and a fire and fury of her own (Evening Standard)

Full of pleasing and piquant detail, scraps of passing recollection assembled from the various lives and letters in which the Brontes featured and from which we might reconstruct their world (Financial Times)

Elegant, sensitive, beautifully paced and moving. [Claire Harman] has... produced a work that is affirmative, edifying, inspiring and humane (Sunday Express)

Revelatory (...) adds freshness and texture to her account with original speculations. As someone who once wrote a book about the Brontės' afterlives, few people can have read as many biographies of them as I have. I thought I was Brontė-ed out, but reading this book-which will be equally accessible to someone coming to Charlotte for the first time-has drawn me back in (Lucasta Miller, The Independent)

From the Back Cover:

'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day . . .'

With these words Charlotte Brontė began Jane Eyre and changed English literature irrevocably.

Now, on the 200th anniversary of Charlotte's birth, Claire Harman's landmark biography provides a bold new view of one of Britain's best loved writers, uncovering an inner life that touched the furthest extremes of human emotion.

Harman shows us an intense and troubled young woman from an astonishingly creative family, whose early works were produced in total secrecy. Struggling against the conventional limitations of both life and literature, Charlotte created a new kind of heroine which both shocked and inspired her Victorian contemporaries. Love, loss, ambition and heartbreak: the anonymous author poured everything into her ground-breaking books, but lived it first.

'Harman [is] a master-storyteller in her own right. Her account of Bronte's life is a level-headed, highly readable and always intelligent. A delight from start to finish' Sunday Times

'Subtle, measured. Full of insight into Bronte's fiery intellect as well as the tragic intensity of her experience' Helen Dunmore, Observer

'Three rounds of applause... a superb retelling of Charlotte's story' Mark Bostridge, Spectator

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0241963664
• ISBN 13: 9780241963661
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480