What if. . . Branwell Bronte had not died before Emily? What if. . .Charlotte was able to marry her "Mr. Rochester"? What if. . .the Misses Bronte's Establishment actually found a pupil: one who is taught by three geniuses? Meet Maria Shelby, spoiled - and rich - daughter of a knight in mid-Victorian England. Maria has a habit of getting in trouble: at eighteen, she's already been sacked from six London schools and no one else will have her. Except: "The Misses Bronte's Establishment," in the remote Yorkshire village of Haworth. Maria is bundled off to Exile, to a land as strange to her as the Bronte's imagined Gondal: she finds herself constantly freezing; the strange family she resides with actually recite Shakespeare at the table( ); the brother is a poesy-spouting firebrand; and as for the median Miss Bronte: let's just say she's a bit "lacking" when it comes to social skills. Yet with the passage of time, Maria - so ignorant she cannot add a simple sum or say "Hello" in French - comes to value her teachers: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. She starts to learn German, Geography, Philosophy, George Sand: subjects utterly verboten for women at the time During her stay at the Parsonage, Maria discovers some explosive letters: addressed by Charlotte to Monsieur Heger in Brussels, the model for Mr. Rochester. This spurs Maria to become a proto-detective: not to mention a first-class spy Gradually, she finds herself attracted to the Romantic, red-haired Branwell; and becomes a friend to Charlotte, who is tortured by thoughts of Monsieur and her own thwarted ambition Maria serves as our eyes and ears to incredible literary history: the creation of the Bronte masterpieces: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She lives through the scathing reviews, the searing deaths of Emily and Anne; the near-hopeless fall of Branwell as descends into drink and opium. Will Branwell ever recover? Will Charlotte reunite with Heger, or end up marrying her father's stiff curate? And what about that strange vision which keeps assailing Maria in the cellar? Part suspense, part high comedy, part Victorian novel, The Misses Bronte's Establishment takes the reader on a profound literary journey along with young Maria."