A central work in Bronte studies, this contribution to the history of the family was first published in 1886 by a man who was both interested in filling in the details of Patrick Branwell Bronte's place in the story and in countering various injustices and inaccuracies of other writers. Although Branwell has suffered vivification by biographers and critics alike as a drunkard, opium user and insignificant literateur, the author evokes for us an entirely different picture of the tormented Branwell Bronte based in large measure on the evidence supplied by close friends and personal letters. This title is cited and recommended by the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.