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The Bronte Sisters' work

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    The Bronte Sisters' work

    I've not read anything by them. Figuring that you well-read types might have, what's best to start with, what's their best book overall, and what should I avoid like the plague?

    #2
    I've only read Jane Eyre - about two years ago - by Charlotte Bronte, and I thought it was lovely. It didn't exactly change my world, but I'm not a young woman any more....

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      #3
      Wuthering Heights. A magnificent multi-layered work - especially when you realise how many narrators there are and that pretty much none of them is reliable. Studied it at A level and then would read it every year until when into my 30's... May just pick it up again in the near future.

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        #4
        The two already mentioned, and to complete the set Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a good read. Not as groundbreaking as her sisters' work but more socially relevant, and popular, in it's day.

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          #5
          Never even heard of Anne until now.

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            #6
            Yeah, I assumed that she'd not made much of an impression in North America after a sketch on Family Guy.

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              #7
              She is, or has been, something of a third wheel. My stepson and his wife name their daughter Charlotte Emily. My first reaction was "What about Anne!" AB's rep has grown a bit recently mainly because TTOWH is viewed as as an important early feminist work.

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                #8
                The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one I hope to get round to this summer. I've been meaning to read it pretty much forever but more so since seeing Anne Bronte's grave in Scarborough churchyard. I hadn't known it was there, but there was a little sign to it on the way down from the castle.

                I've read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is probably the greater work and is an overwhelming experience, but I definitely think I'd start with Jane Eyre.
                Last edited by jameswba; 28-05-2019, 16:59. Reason: addition

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                  #9
                  This was an excellent exhibition at the Morgan Library a few years ago

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                    #10
                    I’ve read them all (English degree, innit). My order of bestest to meh:

                    1. Wuthering Heights
                    2. Tenant of Wildfell Hall
                    3. Villette
                    4. Jane Eyre
                    5. Agnes Grey
                    6. Shirley
                    7. The Professor

                    The first 5 are all great novels and definitely worth a read. The last 2 Charlotte efforts aren’t terrible but really for completists only. I can’t recommend any of brother Branwell’s meagre poetic efforts, or his paintings except for family portraits.

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                      #11
                      Cheers everyone. This is helpful.

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                        #12
                        Shirley might not be the world's greatest novel but it does at least take on the industrial unrest and background to the Luddite movement, so it's a mildly worthy read if you have an interest in that, and includes a veiled description of the infamous attack on Cartwright's mill and the "can you keep a secret?" demise of John Booth. Not that Charlotte was particularly sympathetic to the unrest but hey ho.

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