My husband and I recently took our first trip as empty-nesters. We traveled to Scotland, and then ventured down into England again. One of the highlights for me was visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire. This is the house where the Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—lived and wrote most of their famous works while their father was parson at the adjacent church.
Along with reading The Secret Garden at a young age, I credit my early love of British literature to my sixth teacher reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to us over many weeks, with such heartfelt emotion. (Thank you, Mrs. Morgan!) That teacher and that book certainly had a lasting impact on me and my future writing career. Later, after meeting Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy, I would specifically chose to set my novels in the Regency period, but my love for all-things-England had begun long before then.
Visiting the parsonage was a stirring, even humbling experience. It was a privilege to see the dining room table where the sisters often wrote together, their writing “slopes,” as well as many other personal belongings.
Museum photos (left); Images from the film To Walk Invisible: Brontë Sisters (right).
I was also impressed with the artwork the sisters left behind. They were talented artists as well as writers.
Charlotte’s bonnet and her watercolor of wild roses.
But it was a poignant experience as well, to realize anew how difficult their lives were and how young they all died:
—Anne Brontë (author of two novels: Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell 
Hall) died at age 29 and is buried in Scarborough where she’d gone hoping the fresh sea air might help her recover.
—Emily Brontë (author of the legendary Wuthering Heights) died at age 30 and is buried in Haworth.
—Charlotte lived long enough to write several novels (Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, etc.) and to marry her father’s curate in 1854. The next year, however, early in her pregnancy, she became ill and died, along with her unborn child, three weeks before her 39th birthday.
As sad as their early deaths are, thankfully, the Brontë sisters live forever in literary history…and in readers’ hearts, like mine.
Which Brontë novel is your favorite?
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I love Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. These books are first, which I read from the Brontë sisters. I was fourteen years old and I was absolutely enthusiastic.
So far I love Jane Eyre the best. I read Wuthering heights earlier this year but didn’t care for it that much.
While Jane Eyre is the only Bronte sisters’ novel that I’ve read, I loved it! In fact, I never read it until I taught it well into my teaching career.
I’ve only read Jane Eyre (3 times) and Wuthering Heights (twice), and I love them both. Your trip sounds wonderful!
I love the Brontes’ novels. I’ve read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights several times, the first time for each being a long road trip from Texas to California and back the summer I was 14. When I was in the middle of Wuthering Heights, we stopped to see the Grand Canyon. I got out of the car for a brief moment, declared it looked like the pictures, then climbed back in the hot car to resume reading! I just read Villette last year and loved it!
What a wonderful museum! I would love to visit there, Julie. Jane Eyre is my favorite classic of all time and definitely one of the books that sparked my love for historical romance.
Fascinating travels! Thanks for letting us tag along! I think Jane Eyre is a favorite…I didn’t realize the skills they possessed as artists, or how young they were when they died.
I love the books I read by all of them but especially Jane Eyre.
Interesting info about their short lives.
Thank you!
I’ve read and own all the novels by the Bronte sisters. I think Anne doesn’t get enough attention as her two older sisters.
On my 1st trip to the UK in 2016, I bought the Brontes’ “Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: Selected Early Writings” at the Oxford University Press store in Oxford. The book is edited by Christine Alexander.
I enjoyed watching “To Walk Invisible” on PBS “Masterpiece”. I remember watching the featurettes online–the house was built for the show.
I also felt somewhat sad when I visited Haworth three years ago (even though I did enjoy it very much!) It’s just that their rather tragic lives come so close when you’re really at their house.