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.