The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, houses the largest and most important collection of Brontëana in the world and has been my frequent destination during the writing of this book. I would like to thank all the staff of the museum and library for their kindness and help, but especially the Collections Manager, Ann Dinsdale, whose expertise and lively interest in my subject has made every visit to the Parsonage Library a great pleasure. I would also like to thank Sarah Laycock for her unfailingly prompt and efficient answers to many queries and Linda Proctor-Mackley and Jenna Holmes for help along the way.
For the use of copyright materials and illustrations, and kind permission to quote from manuscripts in their collections, I would like to thank the Brontë Society, British Library, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, City Archive of Brussels, Keighley Local Studies Library, National Portrait Gallery, New York Public Library, Pierpont Morgan Library and Royal Library of Belgium. Many individual members of staff at libraries, galleries and other institutions have generously given me their time, attention and professional expertise during the research for this book, and I would particularly like to thank Maria Molestina and the staff of the Manuscript Reading Room, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City; Isaac Gewirtz, Lyndsi Barnes and Joshua McKeon of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of New York Public Library; Elizabeth Denlinger of the Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library; Katie Thornton and Lucy Arnold of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; Rebekah Lunt and Fran Baker of the John Rylands Library, Manchester; Kirsty Gaskin of Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley; Caroline Brown of Keighley Local Studies Library; Timothy Engels of Brown University Library; the staff of the Upper Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Dr. David Smith of St. Anne’s College Library, Oxford; and the staff of the Manuscript Room at the British Library. I am also very grateful to the staff of the Heinz Archive of the National Portrait Gallery, and especially to Tim Moreton, who in September 2013 arranged a private viewing for me of George Richmond’s portrait of Charlotte Brontë, not at that date on display in the gallery.
My debts to the many Brontë scholars and biographers who have preceded me will be clear from the book’s notes and bibliography, but I would like to pay particular tribute here to the fine biographies of Charlotte Brontë by Lyndall Gordon, Rebecca Fraser and the late Winifred Gérin, and to Lucasta Miller’s seminal study of Brontë reception, The Brontë Myth. Dr. Juliet Barker’s magisterial work, The Brontës, which drew together a wealth of primary and secondary material about the family and their times and established a base of facts about them of unmatchable value and solidity, has been an invaluable resource, and I am also very grateful for Dr. Barker’s responses to my queries during the writing of this book. Christine Alexander’s extensive research into, and editing of, the Brontë juvenilia has been of inestimable value to me, not least for her expertise in deciphering and interpreting the minuscule handwriting used by the Brontë siblings in their earliest writings. I would also like to express my appreciation of the work of Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars in their fine edition of The Art of the Brontës and that of Victor A. Neufeldt in The Poems of Charlotte Brontë, Sue Lonoff in The Belgian Essays and, in various other critical and editorial capacities, Herbert Rosengarten, Edward Chitham, Patsy Stoneman, Tom Winnifrith, Sally Shuttleworth, Dinah Birch, Dudley Green, Stevie Davies, Marianne Thormählen and Janet Gezari.
But my greatest debt is to the scholarship of Margaret Smith, whose three-volume edition of The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, published between 1994 and 2004, has opened out to readers the full scope and significance of Charlotte Brontë’s correspondence. Smith published many items for the first time, corrected attributions, dates and readings, and set all of the letters in a context of impeccably researched annotation and commentary. Her edition has been the essential tool in my biography, as the fullest and most suggestive source to date of Charlotte Brontë’s behaviour and private opinions, and I am very grateful for her generous permission to quote from her work.
For their various contributions of information, encouragement and hospitality I would like to thank Janet Allen, Jay Barksdale, Kate Clanchy, Sarah Fermi, Lyndall Gordon, Sir John and Lady Sue Harman, Alexandra Harris, Selina Hastings, Elliot Kendall, Deborah Lutz, Lucasta Miller, Patsy Stoneman, Marion Taylor and Robin Walker. Mark Bostridge has generously shared his ideas and opinions on the Brontës with me for the past three years, and I am very grateful to him for all our conversations on the subject, and for his ready provision of leads and information. In Belgium, the members of the Brontë Brussels Group, led by Helen MacEwan, proved most convivial and knowledgeable company on two visits, in 2012 and 2015, and I have found their website and blogs of constant use in my research. Helen has also given much friendly help and advice, especially about illustrations, for which I am very grateful. In Haworth, Marian Reynolds at Cherry Tree Cottage and Brenda Taylor and Carol at Ponden Guest House were welcoming hosts, while Steven Wood was extremely generous with his time and assistance, especially over maps and local history sources. He was the best possible guide to changes in the area over the past two hundred years, and walking Haworth moor with him in the autumn of 2014 was pivotally important to my research as well as a great pleasure.
I would like to thank Carolyn Dinshaw and Marget Long for being such charming companions at North Lees Hall in the summer of 2014. I would also like to thank the staff of Hollybank School, Mirfield (the site of Roe Head School); the staff of Red House Gomersal; and Jocelyn Hill, John Williams and Janet Allen at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, Manchester.
I was very fortunate to be awarded a grant from The Authors’ Foundation during the writing of this book and would like to express my gratitude to the assessors of the award and to its administrators, The Society of Authors.
At Alfred A. Knopf I would like to thank my wonderful editor Kris Puopolo for her sensitive and intelligent reading of my manuscript and friendly advice, also Daniel Meyer, Kathy Zuckerman and Joshua Zadjman for all their hard work on the book. My agent Geri Thoma was, as ever, a stalwart and cheerful support throughout the project.
Lastly, I would like to make a special mention of my dear friend Hannah Westland, whose infectious enthusiasm for this project at its inception was extremely important to me and who has remained a most affectionate well-wisher throughout.
Paul Strohm has been the most patient of partners during the writing of this book, and it is dedicated to him with love and gratitude.