At a time when women weren’t encouraged to gain an education, let alone write, that three sisters — growing up isolated on the Yorkshire moors, without much by way of formal education — crafted some of the best English-language novels of all time is in itself fascinating, of course. They lived during a time and place when tragedy and death marred everyone’s lives, but perhaps the particular onslaught of tragedy that marked their family led to the kind of introspection that allowed them to write these books. Their mother died young; two older sisters both died of diseases likely stemming from their time spent at the inarguable inspiration for the cruel academy in Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre.”
Read more of my thoughts about To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters
