Bronte sisters were the daughters of a poor Irish clergyman. They lived in a small town called Haworth in Yorkshire. When Charlotte was only 5 her mother and two oldest sisters died.
The sisters became governesses after they went to boarding school, but eventually they all returned home and started to write. Charlotte and Emily published a book of poems together. Then, in 1847, Charlotte wrote her masterpiece, Jane Eyre. This is a story of a girl like herself who goes to a harsh school where she is cold and hungry. Later, she becomes a governess and falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. They are just about to marry when Jane discovers he has a wife already. The wife is mad and is locked up in a secret room in his house. Jane runs away but returns years later and the novel ends happily.
Emily also wrote her only novel, Wuthering Heights, in the same year. The novel was set in the bleak moors she knew so well, and it describes how two boys, Edgar and Heathcliff, both adore the same girl, Catherine, while hating each other. When they grow up, Catherine falls in love with Heathcliff but still marries Edgar. Both husband and wife die a few years later, leaving Heathcliff bitter and alone but still convinced that the ghost of Catherine will always be near him.
Anne had her novel Agnes Grey published that year too. The sisters all wrote under pretend names, or ‘pseudonyms’. Charlotte was ‘Currer Bell’, Emily was ‘Ellis Bell’ and Anne was ‘Acton Bell’. In those days, it was easier to your books published if the publisher thought you were a man!
Sadly, all three sisters died young. Charlotte, who married in 1854, died during pregnancy the following year, while Emily and Anne both died from tuberculosis.
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