I stumbled across this illustrated biography of Charlotte Brontë after one of my google alerts (“Boston” and “Brontë”) alerted me to this article (Seven Days, Vermont’s Independent Voice). I’ve been meaning to read an actual Brontë biography forever really, but specifically since the 2017 release of To Walk Invisible on PBS and my visit to the Parsonage in 2018.
I read The Mother of the Brontës last year which covered a good portion of this and some of the inspired works cover similar time periods because they were all so young. The downside of the Brontës and Austen are how short their lives were and we can only glean so much from the few letters and drafts of their works that exist, but there are instances where a little creative license and ingenuity can make these well known facts and situations seem new again. And that is the case with this Fawkes work.
I think Alison Bechdel said it best in her introduction of the work,
“Fawkes’s crisp, engaging drawings bring to life the boisterous camaraderie of the Brontë siblings, the windswept moor, a grim school dormitory, even the notoriously difficult to dramatize activities of reading and writing that Charlotte spent most of her time engaged in.”
Where Fawkes excelled was at the extremes of both ends from the change of a facial expression to the sweeping moors or bustling cities. I felt she did a really great job balancing the illustrations, the narrative, and the interaction of the two. She covered a lot of groundwork and most of the lives of the younger siblings in this work in her focus on Charlotte’s life pre-Jane Eyre. Although she focused a good bit on Charlotte’s drive and determination, she might’ve been a little too sympathetic to Charlotte at the expense of Anne and Emily in my opinion.
Where I was disappointed was the lack of attribution of some of the most iconic portraits of the Brontës to the Brontë siblings. Fawkes did an incredibly detailed job of indicating where specific turns of phrase, locations, and even the dogs design came from, but not some of the most iconic portraits of the Brontës which drove me nuts.
The image to the right, as well as a very specific image of Anne on page 38 were lifted directly from iconic portraits by Branwell (UK National Portrait Gallery) and of Anne made by Charlotte (Wikipedia link). Now, I’m not saying Fawkes shouldn’t have used them, she did a good job of adapting them into her style, but she credits her illustrations of the dogs (YAY Flossy and Keeper!) to Emily and Anne, why not these images as well? Or is she just assuming people will know these are those iconic portraits redrawn?
The only other complaint I have is also in response to Fawkes sympathizing with Charlotte, but I think it’s a larger concern of mine in the broader cult of Brontë. Because Charlotte was the one to survive, because she was the one to gain some fame and notoriety during the remaining years of her life, she got to tell the story, she got to present her sisters to the world. So much of what we know comes through the lens of Charlotte that I think we have to remember that.
One scene I feel that gets glossed over frequently is Charlotte’s militant desire to be published, to be known, to be celebrated and the fact that she bullied her sisters into it by invading Emily’s privacy and then manipulating them until they agreed to do join her. Fawkes does cover this (in a few frames), but I can’t help but think Emily’s reaction may have been even bigger than we know but Charlotte, to make her seem less pushy, less militant, rewrote the narrative after both Emily and Anne died. We’ll never know and I can’t speculate, but it just rubs me wrong when Charlotte’s portrayed as too sympathetic, I mean let’s not forget she attempted to censor Anne’s works after she died.
Recommendation: This is a great introductory biography of Charlotte (and her siblings). The illustration style is pleasing and easy to follow, and the narrative hits all of the highlights without spending too much time on any one particular instance. Fawkes made the right decision to stop at the submission of Jane Eyre for publication as I think that part of Charlotte’s life is a lot more well-known and studied, and honestly is a lot more boring than the fantastical childhood fantasies Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne pursued and the sisters eventually evolved from creating some of the most masterful novels in the English language.
You cannot criticize her for not including something you just speculate to have happened — sure Emily was angry to find her snooping in her poems, but she was not in the end opposed to publishing a novel, and Anne was eager to publish, and publish more than she got to do in her too short life. You can say we know more from Charlotte`s perspective, but on the other hand there’s also more to criticize because we have so many personal outpourings from her letters. In a way it is «easier» to just gently appreciate Emily as a mythical figures, and more difficult to see her human errors because she did not not record them in letters, but I’m sure she and Anne had flaws, like Charlotte did. Charlotte was made custodian of their works and was over eager to polish A and Es image after their death, and protect thr family name now that it was know — it is sad that Tenant was not reprinted right then, but understandable that the parallels to Branwell’s life and death felt too private now that the family story was public.
I specifically chose not to be critical about that and made sure to say it was a broader issue for me in the cult of Brontë and even mentioned some of the things you say. I believe I could’ve criticized her more so on it as she very clearly says the bulk of the dialogue was fabricated, but I didn’t.
The only true criticism of the work I had was the lack of attribution of the two portraits when she so carefully attributed specific quotes and other pieces to letters and drawings but not those two.