07.30
On July 30, 1818, novelist Emily Bronte becomes the fifth-born of the six Bronte children, three of whom will grow up to write fiction. The Bronte family lived in the remote village of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors and were largely left to their own devices after the death of their mother in 1820. A shy, reclusive child, Emily suffered severe homesickness whenever she left the parsonage. She along with her sisters Charlotte, Anne and brother Branwell, read voraciously and created their own elaborate stories about mythical lands. Many of Emily’s poems were written about these imaginary realms. Bronte was well educated at home and worked several short, unhappy stints as a governess and schoolteacher. In 1842, Emily and Charlotte went to Brussels to study school administration, hoping to open their own school in Haworth one day, which they never accomplished. In 1845, Charlotte came across some poems Emily had written and revealed that she too had secretly been writing verse. They also learned that Anne had also been secretly writing. Charlotte published their joint work, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, in 1846. Although the book sold only two copies, the sisters continued writing. In 1847 all three sisters published novels, Charlotte Jane Eyre, Emily Wuthering Heights and Anne Agnes Grey. Emily died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848, a year after her novel was published.
