Mrs. Oberthier - The Bronte Sisters

Charlotte Brontë
(1816-1855)
pseudonym - Currer Bell

Emily Brontë
(1818 - 1848)
pseudonym - Ellis Bell

Anne Brontë
(1820-1849)
pseudonym - Acton Bell

The three sisters were born to the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria Branwell of Penzance. Rev. Brontë who had moved from Ireland to Weatherfield, in Essex, where he taught in Sunday school, eventually he settled in Yorkshire, the centre of his life's work. He married Maria Branwell of Penzance in 1812. Patrick Brontë loved poetry, he published several books of prose and verse and wrote to local newspapers. In 1820, he moved to Hawort, a poverty-stricken little town at the edge of a large tract of moorland, where he served as a rector and chairman of the parish committee. Mrs. Bronte died soon after reaching Haworth, and the children were cared for by their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell.

The three writers are almost as famous for their short, tragic lives as for their novels. In their works they described love more truthfully that was common in Victorian age England. Their lives and works are associated with the Yorkshire moors of England where they were born.

Charlotte Brontë is best-known for her novel Jane Eyre (1847). Charlotte fell ill during pregnancy. She died March 31, 1855, at age thirty-nine. Charlotte's other novels were: Shirley, published 1849, Villette, published 1853 and The Professor, published 1857.

Emily Brontë, perhaps the greatest writer of the three Brontë sisters, published only one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a story of Catherine and Heathcliff and the doomed love and revenge. Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis in the late 1848, at age thirty. She had caught cold at her brother Branwell's funeral in September.

Branwell Brontë, the only son of the family, Emily and Anne all died within a few months of one another, of tuberculosis ("consumption") - exacerbated, in Branwell's case, by heavy drinking and a debauched lifestyle. Some skeptics maintained that Wuthering Heights was written by Branwell, on the grounds that no woman from such circumscribed life, could have written such passionate story.

Anne Brontë is best-known for Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), which are generally considered more conservative works than her sisters. Anne died during the following year at age twenty-nine, also of tuberculosis. Her brother, Branwell & sister, Emily, also died of "consumption" a few months prior.

The sisters also published jointly a volume of verse, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, but only two copies of the book were sold.

Tuberculosis, also called TB, phthisis, consumption, and nicknamed the white plague, is the most common infectious disease in the world today. It is caused by a bacterium, usually the Mycobacterium tuberculosis but any member of the so called Tuberculosis complex will do. If left untreated, more than 50% will die in a few years time. It causes about 2-3 million deaths per year out of 9-10 million cases and is especially prevalent in undeveloped, tropical countries.