Part of the Hero Classics series As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.
Having known each other barely five years, Charlotte Bronte's father, still grieving the loss of his daughter, tasked Elizabeth Gaskell with the impossible job of capturing the essence of one of our most beloved writers. Nonetheless, she embarked upon her grave duty with alacrity and determination. The resulting work would become one of the most influential and iconic biographies in history.
On the one hand, this is the story of one novelist wading through the noise to make her subject known - a task exacerbated by the mythology already surrounding Charlotte Bronte. On the other hand, this is also the story of one friend trying simultaneously to grieve and memorialise another.
The Hero Classics series:
Meditations
The Prophet
A Room of One's Own
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
The Art of War
The Life of Charlotte Bronte