Robert Barnard

Emily Bront E Robert Barnard

Largely self-educated, Emily Bronte (1818-1848) was her father's favorite daughter and spent most of her life at the rectory in Haworth, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. She lead a protected, uneventful existence, with almost no social contacts. Robert Barnard examines her insulated childhood, peculiarities, social boorishness, and aversion to relationships. He includes excerpts of Emily's lyrical poems of her twenties which presage the raw intensity ofWuthering Heights. Many aspects of her only novel are shaped by her own experiences, and the author traces the real-life counterparts of characters, landscape, and buildings. He draws extensively from critical sources varying from early reviews ofWuthering Heights to Gaskell's appraisal of Emily's "stern selfishness," to Juliet Barker's recent biography of the Bronte family.