3 Review(s)

Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) is a pioneering biography of one great Victorian woman novelist by another. Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte Bronte, and, having been invited to write the official life, determined both to tell the truth and to honour her friend. She contacted those who had known Charlotte and travelled extensively in England and Belgium to gather material. She wrote from a vivid accumulation of letters, interviews, and observation, establishing the details of Charlotte's life and recreating her background. Through an often difficult and demanding process, Gaskell created a vital sense of a life hidden from the world. This edition, based on the revised Third Edition of 1857, collated with the manuscript and the First Edition, and taking account of the Second Edition, offers fuller information about the process of writing and fuller elucidation of the text than any previous edition. For the first time, all the French passages are translated, and detailed annotation covers biographical and historical material, references, and allusions.