Biography Emily Jane Brontë

Poet Biography

Emily was one of six children born to Patrick Bronte, an Irish Anglican minister. She briefly attended school with her elder sister Charlotte, but spent most of her formative years at home in Yorkshire. Together with her sister Anne, to whom she was particularly close, Emily created a fantasy land inspired by the reading of works such as Arabian Nights. Her strong attachment to her home, in particular to the Yorkshire moors, made Emily desperately ill and unhappy on the three further occasions she went away: first to another school, then as a governess and finally for a stay in Brussels with Charlotte in order to study languages. She was a silent and reserved person, without close friends.

In 1845 Charlotte is said to have discovered Emily's poetry and to have ensured its publication, but Emily had no literary success in her lifetime. Wuthering Heights, with its themes of love and hate, had a very hostile reception and was even considered to have the potential to deprave and corrupt. Emily died of tuberculosis at the age of 30.