Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, and grew up in the parsonage at Haworth, where her father was the curate. Her mother and two older sisters died when she was a child. With her sisters Charlotte and Anne and her brother Branwell, she invented imaginary kingdoms and wrote about them for years. Her formal schooling was short. She worked for a few months as a teacher near Halifax and studied in Brussels with Charlotte in 1842.

In 1846 the three sisters published a book of poems under male pen names. Emily wrote as Ellis Bell. Wuthering Heights (1847) is her only novel. It follows Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, whose bond is closer to shared identity than to romance, and the damage their obsession does across two generations on the Yorkshire moors. Many early reviewers found it coarse and violent. Its reputation grew after her death.

She fell ill with tuberculosis in late 1848, soon after Branwell's funeral, and refused most medical help. She died at Haworth in December 1848, aged 30.