

|  | THE
BRONTË MYTH
A brilliant combination
of biography, literary criticism, and history,
THE BRONTË MYTH shows how Charlotte, Emily,
and Anne Brontë became cultural icons whose
ever-changing reputations reflected the obsessions
of various eras.
When literary London learned that JANE EYRE and
WUTHERING HEIGHTS had been written by young rural
spinsters, the Brontës instantly became as
famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon
after their deaths, their first biographer spun
the sisters’ lives into a picturesque myth
of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Ever
since, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations
of readers – Victorian, Freudian, feminist
– to reinterpret them, casting them as everything
from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics.
In her bewitching “metabiography,”
Lucasta Miller follows the twists and turns of
the phenomenon of Brontë-mania and rescues
these three fiercely original geniuses from the
distortions of legend.
Rights Sold
U.K. & Commonwealth - Cape
U.S. - Knopf
|