The Brontes

Rating:
Summary: Hold the Charlotte-bashing. Please.
Review: A must-read for any Bronte fan, but be prepared for the biographers's tendency to assert her own bias about Charlotte. I felt that she took Charlotte's actions and written words from personal letters (and public letters, as in the preface to Wuthering Heights) out of context when interpreting them, at times. Even then, some of her assertions are laughable, they're so out-of-the-blue. It's actually kind of fascinating to wonder why the biographer has such a bone to pick with Charlotte. Maybe her effort to humanize Charlotte (to distinguish this bio from other Bronte bios) just got a tad too overzealous. Other than this annoyance (which tends to pop up throughout the book when you least expect it, like a zit that won't go away) I did enjoy the read - so vivid and inclusive. A nice touch is the map in the beginning, and the inclusion of small artwork selections by Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne at the beginning of each chapter.

Rating:
Summary: Simply wonderful
Review: Barker's expansive biography of the Bronte family opens up a new world of scholarship and shakes up many old and prevalent myths. Deeply researched and lovingly detailed, this book is a massive treasure trove of information that almost completely "reinvents" the Brontes, showing them not merely as pale, passive victims in an unhealthy atmosphere of renunciation and disease, but as determined and spirited people whose creativity burst from their souls and put its eternal stamp on the literary landscape. This book is a landmark of its kind, and thoroughly worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: The definitive Bronte biography
Review: If you only read one Bronte biography, let it be this one. Juliet Barker has written a magisterial and authoritative work which, barring new information, will remain the definitive Bronte biography.

Justice is done at last for Patrick Bronte, who emerges from this book as an affectionate father, a faithful servant to his parishioners, and something of a liberal on the social issues of the day. Indeed, if this book has a 'hero', it is Patrick. In contrast, whilst the author pays due compliment to her undoubted qualities, Charlotte Bronte's less sympathetic attributes are here for all to see, including her bossiness, manipulativeness, and her mostly unflattering opinion of her sibling's literary efforts. Her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, also emerges as a decent and good man, who truly loved Charlotte for herself, not her literary fame. Although a long (1,000 pages) book, this is one of those rare unputdownable works which will have you reading right through to the end.

Rating:
Summary: A anti-Charlotte "Brontes"
Review: Juliet Barker's "The Brontes" is meticulously researched and extremely thorough. But for me the book is marred by Barker's relentless critique of Charlotte Bronte. She argues that Charlotte did nothing to help her brother in his alcoholism and depression, and "could" or "should" have done more. Even more distorted is her portrayal of Charlotte's involvement with her sisters' writing. Barker absolutely insists on the existence of another novel by Emily after "Wuthering Heights" (pure speculation based on an inquiry EB sent to her publisher). She then condemns Charlotte for having burned this hypothetical manuscript which in fact may not have existed! I finished the book wondering why on earth Barker would spend so much time reading and writing about someone she so clearly does not like.

Rating:
Summary: Long, somewhat ponderous and yet informative
Review: Ms. Barker's book is the most thorough and even-handed representation of the Bronte family that I've read. Charlotte still gets the most attention, but no doubt that's because there is more documentation of her than the others.

Rating:
Summary: AND the kitchen sink....
Review: That the Brontes were talented and have left an enduring legacy to the world of lituature is an unchallenged fact. That this book is the most exhaustive study of that family to date will probably also be undisputed. For anyone who has ever wanted to aquaint themselves with every cobblestone trod upon, every house lived in or visited, every sermon attended, every note written, every dress sewn - THIS is the book for you. In a book of 1000+ pages, the years in which the great Bronte lituature was produced is covered in a mere 125+ pages. Almost a footnote in a body of work of this size. Slightly less perhaps would have left us with much more