This is a group biography of the three novelist sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, their poet/painter brother Branwell, and their father Patrick, picking apart the Bronte mythology to get at the truth. It's well researched with wonderful illustrations, including sketches by the Bronte siblings themselves. Barker managed to get me very invested and sympathetic with the Brontes as if they were fictional characters and I found myself crying several times. I was also surprised how much I liked the Bronte's father, Patrick, who has always been mythologized as gruff and tyrannical.

This is an exhaustive biography of the entire Bronte family, including the father, Patrick, and brother, Branwell. It is definitely well-researched, but it is almost a little too well researched, at least in the writing. I am not sure that a Bronte wrote a letter in their lives that still exists and is not quoted in this book. I appreciate the work that the author put into researching the Brontes' lives, but the book is a bit of a slog and could have benefitted from some editing down to just the important aspects of their lives.

(Do you tear through a 1000+ page biography just to get your facts straight before someone decides to character assassinate your literary faves in an upcoming film... or are you, uh, not that unhinged?)

Well, yolo, this book was fantastic, one of the best biographies I've ever read. I'm in awe. I love and appreciate the Brontës even more than before, and I could have read another thousand pages and still not have been bored. An instant favourite.

It took a full two months to finish this book. After watching the recent biopic about the Bronte siblings, I was excited to read this biography which had been sitting very large and intimidating on my shelves for a few years. However, when I started reading I found out just how incredibly detailed the book is, about every possible aspect of the Brontes' lives, including their father's life, education, and career before the siblings were even born, every plot of their childhood writings, every social outing in their lives, etc. I skimmed through some of these parts, but once it got into their actual lives as adults and writers, it was much more fascinating and enthralling. Some parts were very fast reads, others started to drag on again. Eventually, I realized the author must have never intended to "tell a good story" and rather, meant to supply every fact and possible fact about their lives, without much thought to pacing & story arc. Thankfully, the lives of the Brontes are interesting enough to be a good story, once you get through it.

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is my favorite book of all time, and in high school and college, I read many of the Bronte books, wrote many essays about them, and read a few biographies or articles about their lives. I still did not know most of the information from this book, so I in no way regret the time I spent reading this book. I had the dual experience of both not knowing "what happened next" and also feeling like I already knew the events of their lives. I hadn't realized how autobiographical Charlotte's novels were, and I loved seeing how Charlotte became who she was as a person and as an author. I wish I could know as much about Emily and even Anne, since unfortunately there is not much left from their writings or letters. I do have a definite sense of accomplishment for having finished this huge book, and I'm also left with a very deep desire to re-read all of their works, and finally read the ones that I haven't. And, of course, to someday make my own pilgrimage to Haworth & the moors.

I will be reading this book for quite some time as it's very long and detailed. This is THE biography on the Bronte sisters. I had to special order it through a used and rare book store, but it was totally worth the trouble. AMAZING!

Despite the fact it took me months to read this mighty tome (just under 1000 pages of biography), I'm glad I persisted. Juliet Barker writes beautifully and accessibly and has clearly dedicated years to researching and presenting a truthful portrait of an extraordinary family. The early sections focus on Patrick Bronte; his education and early years as a minister of the church. With the same meticulous focus, the childhood "scribblemania" nearly defeated me, however my interest was revived in the siblings' early adulthoods and the formation of each one as literary cannons. This tome very much brings them all into sharp focus; the writing never bores or flags - Barker has done an incredible job.

At 830 pages (plus notes,) Juliet Barker's biography "The Brontes" is incredibly comprehensive -- perhaps a little too dense for a more casual reader interested in learning about the life of authors Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte.

The book mostly focuses on Charlotte and her father Patrick, as Anne and Emily died young and had no friends to correspond with, so letters detailing their lives are pretty much non-existent. Charlotte's letters to her friend Ellen chronicled much of her life and Ellen turned those letters over to Charlotte's first biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, so there is a lot more source material there. It also contains a good deal of information about their brother Branwell, and his descent into alcoholism and depression, which eventually killed him.

I thought the book bogged down a bit (considering Charlotte, who lived the longest of the sisters died at age 38... short lives all...) the quoting of the sister's childhood writing grew a bit tiresome for me. At the same time, Barker's book provides a great amount of insight into the sisters and what inspired them to write. The book also works hard to debunk some of the myths surrounding the sisters as well. Overall, an interesting and generally entertaining read.

I really like to read books about my favorite authors, but this was a little too much because It's so omnicomprehensive that in the end more than 1000 pages over this interesting family were a little bit of too much for me; more, I still haven't read all of their books and I didn't want "spoilers"! This book is more about the father and Charlotte, and this was quite a disappointment to me, because I've already read Mrs. Gaskell "Life of Charlotte Bronte", even if Gaskell's Charlotte is different from this one, and I tend to believe to the recent version of her. This book is really for to the lovers of Victorian era, because it really seems to be there anyway.

Mi piace leggere i libri su i miei autori preferiti, ma questo è stato un po' "troppo", perchè è talmente dettagliato ed onnicomprensivo che alla fine, più di 1000 pagine su questa, per quanto interessante famiglia, sono state eccessive per me; inoltre non ho ancora letto tutti i loro libri e non volevo Spoiler! Questo libro poi è più incentrato su Charlotte su Patrick, il padre, e questo è stata un po' una delusione perchè avendo già letto "La vita di Charlotte Bronte" Di E. Gaskell, alcune parti sono state un po' ripetitive, pur se la figura di Charlotte in quest ultimo saggio emerge meno edulcorata e tendo a credere più alla Barker che alla Gaskell a riguardo.
C'è però da dire che se siete degli amanti dell'epoca vittoriana questo libro ha una grandissima capacità descrittiva, tanto che sembra di esserci.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA FOR THE PREVIEW

This is a great book to disappear into for a couple of weeks if you are already familiar with the few extant details of the Bronte's lives. Patrick gets a better look in this incredibly detailed family biography. Many questions were answered, as fully as can be done.