Charlotte Brontë, a passionate life / Lyndall Gordon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gordon, Lyndall.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855.

Brontë, Charlotte.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

x, 418 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Edition:

[First paperback edition].

Other Title:

Passionate life

Place of Publication:

New York : W.W. Norton, 1996.

Summary:

This highly acclaimed biography looks beyond the insistent image of the modest Victorian lady, the slave to duty in the shadow of tombstones. Instead we see a strong, fiery woman who shaped her own life and transformed it into art. Lyndall Gordon looks at the shared gifts and class ambitions of the Bronte family, and also at significant people-the active feminist Mary Taylor, the demanding mentor Constantin Heger, the rising publisher George Smith-whom Charlotte strove to possess in life and fiction.

Drawing on unpublished letters, the "Roe Head Journal," early stories, the manuscript of Villette, and her last, unfinished novel, Lyndall Gordon explores the gaps in Charlotte Bronte's life. How did she arrive at her understanding of passion from a woman's point of view? Could she resolve the testing conflict between a writer's life and a seemingly incongruous marriage to the devoted curate Arthur Bell Nicholls? Looking into the shadow between the facts, Gordon takes biography into that unseen space where this woman of genius was able to live.

Contents:

1 The Unseen Space 1

2 False Idols, True Friends 26

3 Egypt and the Promised Land 49

4 Love's Language 94

5 A Public Voice 132

6 To Walk Invisible 164

7 The Limits of Friendship 203

8 Buried Fire 253

9 Marriage 275

10 Surviving 315.

Notes:

Reprint of the 1st American ed.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-407) and index.

ISBN:

0393314480

9780393314489

OCLC:

35571567