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The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë
"Miss du Maurier has brought to the art of the biography the narrative urgency which gives such animation to her storytelling." -New York Times Book Review
Pursued by the twin demons of drink and madness, Branwell Bronte created a private world that was indeed infernal. As a bold and gifted child, his promise seemed boundless to the three adoring sisters over whom his rule was complete. But as an adult, the precocious flame of genius distorted and burned low. With neither the strength nor the resources to counter rejection, unable to sell his paintings or publish his books, Branwell became a spectre in the Bronte story, in pathetic contrast with the astonishing achievements of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. This is the biography of the shadowy figure of the "unknown" Bronte.
Pursued by the twin demons of drink and madness, Branwell Bronte created a private world that was indeed infernal. As a bold and gifted child, his promise seemed boundless to the three adoring sisters over whom his rule was complete. But as an adult, the precocious flame of genius distorted and burned low. With neither the strength nor the resources to counter rejection, unable to sell his paintings or publish his books, Branwell became a spectre in the Bronte story, in pathetic contrast with the astonishing achievements of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. This is the biography of the shadowy figure of the "unknown" Bronte.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1960
60 people are currently reading
2,364 people want to read
About the author
Daphne du Maurier
374books9,524followersDaphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story. The nameless heroine has
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story. The nameless heroine has
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September 27, 2024
The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë is a very scholarly work by Daphne du Maurier. Of all her books, this has sold the least copies, yet it is well worth a read. The author has a very readable style, and her fiction is excellent at creating tension and evoking atmosphere. This biography is meticulously researched, yet it is very imaginative within its factual boundaries.
The author creates vivid impressions of daily life at the Parsonage, Branwell Brontë's work as a station clerk, his rituals at the Masonic Lodge (after he was accepted as a Freemason) and his evenings at the pub, all of which are not strictly necessary in a dry account of Branwell's life. However, nothing is made up or invented. She has included all the facts she could learn by her painstaking research, and expanded creatively into the gaps.
The book was first published in 1960, and at the time another author, Winifred Gérin, was also working on her own biography of Branwell Brontë. There was some rivalry between the two, and Daphne du Maurier's records and correspondence reveal that she felt under great, if self-imposed, pressure to be the first to publish.
Daphne du Maurier had a lifetime fascination with the Brontës. The introduction tells us that even in old age, according to her nurse, talking about the Brontës “was the best therapy� and remained one of the few topics that still made her “spark into animation�. We can deduce this for ourselves too, as � clearly owes a great deal to “Jane Eyre�; it is almost a retelling of that story, with Daphne du Maurier's idiosyncratic twist. She felt there was a need to investigate Branwell's story; the mysterious figure who seemed to have had such a low self-image that he had painted himself out of his own family portrait of all the siblings:
Branwell remains a shadowy figure here, a ghostly spectre, much as he remains in our thoughts, compared with the astonishing literary achievements and reputations of each of his three sisters. Yet he was the second eldest, out of four (originally six) siblings, and the only male. His sisters all adored him, thinking him to be a genius, the ruler and king over their imagined worlds. He had such confidence as a youngster and such potential, such creative zeal, plus a happy supportive home life ... so what could possibly go wrong?
Branwell Brontë, as we know, was the brother of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. He was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848. He was the fourth child of Patrick and Maria Brontë, a parson, and his wife. His two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, both tragically died young, as did his mother, and this had a traumatic effect on him, as evidenced in his poetry. He was a year younger than Charlotte, a year older than Emily, and three years older than Anne.
The “infernal world� he inhabited had strong roots in his emotional reactions to these compounded deaths. His young sister Maria became, for Branwell, a substitute for his mother who had died in 1821. This plus Elizabeth's death, less than a month after Maria's, affected him greatly,
resulting in the morbidly descriptive poems he wrote at this time.
Branwell never recovered from the crisis in faith which this engendered, becoming severely disturbed, and escaping into his fantasy worlds. These early encounters with death seemed to fuel his compulsion to view the world through the heroic and melodramatic tales he created with his sisters as children.
We feel very strongly Daphne du Maurier's exasperation with Branwell: her frustation that such a bright flame, such a precocious child, should have had his hopes thwarted, his reputation in ruins and his talent fade into virtual obscurity. What do we now know about Branwell Brontë after all, other than that he had a reputation for being an alcoholic - and that he died young?
Yet clearly there is so much more. Despair, that the star of the family, the precocious golden boy, came to such a sorry end. A failed genius, with a tragic decline into early death. Tragic, because even if as the author suggests in the subtext, much of this was not inevitable; Branwell could have made other choices, exasperation with him would be useless. Charlotte and his long-suffering father both felt he could have taken control more. But he had neither the strength nor the resources to counter rejection. Branwell was unable to resist the comforting retreat given his tortured soul by laudanum, a mixture of morphine, opium and alcohol, and also the lure of ego-soothing conviviality he found at the local inn - which of course was fuelled by alcohol. We are shown his sorry story in an exceptionally moving way.
One of the things this biography reveals, in great detail and by giving many examples, is the many startling similarities in both content and style of the Brontë siblings' writings. Daphne du Maurier quotes many instances of how, even when they were apart, echoes of their work together and their imagined worlds can still be found.
There has long been a theory that it was Branwell who had written “Wuthering Heights�. Daphne du Maurier has tracked down evidence, both written and testimonial, from those who witnessed an episode of Branwell reading from an early draft, to show that Branwell and Emily probably collaborated in the first stages of the novel. However, she does not go so far as to think that has been wrongly attributed. It seems more likely, that this was one of many instances where Branwell saw an idea which he considered to be his own (even if only partially) developed, and perhaps capitalised on, and yet again achieved literary kudos for one of his talented sisters. So how did this all start?
In 1826, when Branwell was nine years old, his father brought home a set of toy soldiers:
“Tearing open the box, he had run to his three sisters, and had given each of them one of the little wooden figures. Immediately the soldiers had assumed names and personalities, and round them the four children had built some of their most cherished games. Out of them, indeed, had grown the heroic figures whom the sisters later wove into their tales. The soldier whom Charlotte had dubbed 'Wellesley' was now Rochester, lover of Jane Eyre. 'Parry', Emily's soldier, was Heathcliff, alone on Wuthering Heights. Anne's soldier, 'Ross', had become Arthur Huntingdon, whose wife fled to Wildfell Hall. Only 'Sneaky', his own soldier, later to become Alexander Percy, remained hidden and unknown.�
It was from these games they played that the phenomenon of “AԲ� was born, and in all of their games, and all of Angria, Branwell was the kingpin.
As the only son among five sisters, Branwell always had keen sense of being different, and possibly of being “special�. He it was, who was the leader, and who initiated his sisters into the world-building of “AԲ�, a fantasy land which they all created, and which we can find allusions to in their personal accounts; which clearly influenced their adult writing. We can see examples of all the children's stories of “AԲ� in the Parsonage Museum, written so tiny that one needs a magnifying glass to read them, and deliberately written this way, because of their risque content, involving incest and dastardly deeds.
Together the children role-played the heroes and villains, discussed, invented, and wrote incessantly. Usually Branwell would view himself as “Alexander Percy� the hero, but sometimes Emily - or later Charlotte - would take on this mantle. However none of the sisters seem to have identified so totally with their created hero. Branwell's fixation on “Alexander Percy�, (or ٲԱ�), remained with him throughout his entire life, transmogrifying into an idealised version of his own self and image; a representation of who Branwell desperately wanted to become ... and to have fed his later delusions.
There was a huge variety of stories: “My Angria and the Angrians�, for example, and “Tales of Angria�, including 'Mina Laury', 'Stancliffe's Hotel', 'The Duke of Zamorna', 'Henry Hastings', 'Caroline Vernon', and 'The Roe Head Journal Fragments'. There were great capital cities, invented in the finest detail, and called 'Glasstown' and 'Verdopolis'. In childlike fashion, Anne and Emily were eventually banished from them, and so they created their own island, 'Gondal', and it is here that Emily Brontë's “GDzԻ岹� poems began. Emily was later to copy them into a notebook, in 1844.
There are thousands of pages in the Brontë siblings' tiny handwriting; characters and stories, geography and history, all set in these fantasy countries of “AԲ� and “GDzԻ岹�. Branwell could write with both hands, and had a phenomenal memory. His father was enormously proud of him, teaching him Latin and Greek, and his future looked assured. Such a bright child could surely turn his hand to anything. When an Aunt came to look after all the children, on the death of their mother, she did not even think it necessary to include Branwell in her will (which was to have severe ramifications when she died.)
Perhaps the first indication that Branwell was different, and possibly would not find it easy to make his mark in life, comes from the accounts of him attempting to attend school. Branwell was so nervous and sensitive around other children, that his father decided to teach him at home. He possibly had mental instability too, which now looks very much like a type of epilepsy, but it was undiagnosed at the time. Branwell certainly found the environment and other children very difficult, and revelled in his seclusion which enabled him to develop his exceptional creativity; he wrote poetry and painted. The future still looked bright for Branwell.
With the wisdom of hindsight, we are able to put together the puzzle as those who were involved at the time never could. The book is full of references to the sisters themselves, and the deleterious impact of their success on Branwell's fragile state of mind. This adds a new dimension to our knowledge of the sisters too; an understanding of their own creativity, as well as telling us of their day-to-day lives and their travels. We can also see that Branwell's father never truly understood his son's difficulties, much as he loved him and devoted many hours to Branwell while he himself was ill. He insisted on being there for his son as Branwell threw off his faith - a deeply felt blow for the father - and Branwell's health rapidly declined. When Elizabeth Gaskell published her biography of Charlotte, Mr. Brontë told her:
“The picture of my brilliant and unhappy son is a masterpiece.�
We now see that Branwell may not have been so “brilliant�, and that to a great extent this was wishful thinking. He had neither the dedication nor the stamina to achieve what his sisters had. The siblings may all have had a similar innate amount of talent; it is what they did with it which differs.
Both Mr. Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell stated a belief that an abortive love-affair was the final straw for Branwell, but in truth it looks unlikely. Branwell had a job, tutoring the son of Reverend Edmund Robinson, for whom previously Anne had also worked, as a governess. But Branwell became infatuated with Lydia Robinson, Edmund's wife. There are many varying accounts of this episode. Daphne du Maurier theorises that Branwell may have been dismissed from his post as tutor, because of something to do with Edmund Robinson's attitude to Branwell, rather than any intrigue with his wife. But even this is mere speculation.
Branwell's fantasising and inability to distinguish truth from fiction, had grown by now so profound, that the truth of any “love affair� is likely to be more in his own mind, and impossible to ascertain at this stage. His preoccupation with his own “infernal world� is well documented. By the end of his life Branwell was barely capable of distinguishing what was reality, and what mere fantasy. For example, a friend had arranged to meet Branwell in the “Black Bull Inn� one evening, as his friend was concerned at his rapid decline. Branwell was consumed by his fantasies, and turned up with a carving knife in his sleeve, telling his friend after a while that he had been dreading to meet up with Satan, and was not sure at first who he was.
Branwell had worked as an assistant clerk in charge at Sowerby Bridge railway station, in West Yorkshire, and then later as a clerk in charge. He had been dismissed following the discovery of a deficit in the accounts (most likely a porter had stolen the money whilst Branwell neglected his post). Could this have been the first time Branwell took a dose of laudanum? Perhaps as a result of the shame of dismissal, to dampen what he was feeling, or in a mistaken belief that it would enable him to perform his duties more efficiently?
Branwell probably had a great fear of a convulsive attack seizing him, as it had done in London four years before. Opium was easily and cheaply available, and anything that dulled pain, and had the benefit of stimulating the imagination too, was likely to seem very attractive to Branwell Brontë. He would also view the drug through a rose-tinted romanticism, since it was known that opium had inspired the poets Coleridge and de Quincey. De Quincey said he would take fifty-three ounces of laudanum on one of his peak days, so Branwell considered it would be perfectly safe to take just three ounces. Moreover, it was something which, unlike his drinking, would not be noticed at home, either.
We can see how easily Branwell slipped into his own private “iԴڱԴ�. But it is harder to pinpoint the time at which Branwell could no longer return in his mind to the real world, or resume a normal life. Certainly his early hopes were quashed time and time again. He made friends with a fashionable sculptor, J. B. Leyland, who himself seemed to have a great future ahead of him. (Sadly, in point of fact, Leyland's own fortunes were dashed by a series of unfortunate accidents to his marble sculptures, and lack of money.) Leyland was a very kind man, and acted as a mentor for the young Branwell, and encouraged his artistic ability.
Branwell maintained a strong early belief in himself as a genius, and hoped that others would come to recognise this in time. That recognition was never to come. His family desperately tried to help. Charlotte wrote to Robert Southey, the current Poet Laureate, and Branwell himself wrote to William Wordsworth, who was to become Poet Laureate in 1843. It seems likely that Branwell's letter was very gauche, as he received no reply, a fact which cut him deeply. Wordsworth himself told Southey that Branwell's letter contained:
“gross flattery and plenty of abuse of other poets.�
Branwell wrote to Hartley Coleridge too, who was the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a popular and talented poet of the time, although mostly forgotten now.
Branwell could not take rejection in any form. When he had been rejected by the “Royal Academy� he sought solace in drinking with his old friends from the Railway Company, whom he felt did not judge him. And now he was having similar experiences with his poetry, writing these letters; letters which seem very naive in their self-confidence and criticism of current poets. The later ones go to the other extreme, and seem far too obsequious.
Poor Branwell could never get it right, and each rejection was like a physical blow to him. He even felt his railway jobs were demeaning, although by now strings had had to be pulled to employ him in any capacity at all. Whenever he had experienced criticism in one field, he would switch to another. Was he a painter? Was he a writer? Was he a poet? He had no staying power, no sense of continuity, and of course was self-taught. Because he wanted to be accepted by the establishment, he produced works which seemed quite derivative, and offered them up for inspection, rather than any of the original “AԲ� stories. Perhaps, in some strange way, those stories of his invented “AԲ� had begun to seem sacrosanct to him, and by sharing them he felt he would be sharing part of his own soul.
He certainly had a tempestuous relationship with religion. From his violent rejections of his childhood faith after he watched his mother - and then two of his beloved sisters - one after another die, he moved through burgeoning spiritual beliefs to a brush with freemasonry. We read what it was like to be a freemason in the North of England at this time; what the rites would have been and what Branwell would have known at the “Three Graces Lodge� in Haworth. Daphne du Maurier feels that much of this symbolism and ritual transfers into Branwell's poetry from the time.
Yet true to his personality type, Branwell did not stick to freemasonry. By the end of his life, he had made a sort of peace with his father's Christianity, and prayed with his father as he was dying.
Branwell's death by now seemed inevitable, and on 24th September 1848 it was recorded as due to “chronic bronchitis and marasmus� (wasting of the body). Branwell was 31 years old. A mere six weeks later, in December of that year, Emily was also to die. Then a few months after that, in the following May, came Anne’s death. Charlotte was now left with no siblings.
For such a bold and artistically gifted child, Branwell Brontë must have seemed to have infinite potential and promise to his three adoring sisters, over whom his power, his Angrian rule, was total. Yet even by the time his aunt died, contrary to all expectations of his success, Branwell was destitute, an alcoholic, had a history of broken employment and dismissals, was accused of having an affair with the wife of his employer, and was dependent on the family finances; the pennies Charlotte and her sisters could spare from the money they earned through writing, plus what he could winkle out of his aged father.
It has been said that Branwell Brontë was always very creative, but what he lacked was talent. From a modern perspective, we can see that despite all his early effort, Branwell's works have never been recognised as genius, unlike that of his sisters. Some of his poems are included in Brontë poetry collections and some editions of the Brontë's juvenilia include Branwell's works too. His artistic achievements were unsuccessful too, and his goal to be admitted into the Royal Academy of Arts was never realised. He did for a time work as a portrait painter, but very few of his canvases now survive.
The entire book is a picture of tragedy, of unfulfilled potential. But it is more than that. Branwell was so deluded in his belief of his own creative genius, and so over-estimated his creativeness, that became obsessed with his own “infernal world�, which in truth was an entirely fictitious world, of “AԲ�. He was, of course a victim of the time he was trapped in, of those around him who did not understand his inner demons or temperament, nor properly understand his mental afflictions. But who is to say whether he could have survived, even had Branwell Brontë lived in the 21st century. There are pressures now; they are just very different pressures.
Daphne du Maurier has written a vivid and effective account, which is edifying and affecting in equal measure.
The author creates vivid impressions of daily life at the Parsonage, Branwell Brontë's work as a station clerk, his rituals at the Masonic Lodge (after he was accepted as a Freemason) and his evenings at the pub, all of which are not strictly necessary in a dry account of Branwell's life. However, nothing is made up or invented. She has included all the facts she could learn by her painstaking research, and expanded creatively into the gaps.
The book was first published in 1960, and at the time another author, Winifred Gérin, was also working on her own biography of Branwell Brontë. There was some rivalry between the two, and Daphne du Maurier's records and correspondence reveal that she felt under great, if self-imposed, pressure to be the first to publish.
Daphne du Maurier had a lifetime fascination with the Brontës. The introduction tells us that even in old age, according to her nurse, talking about the Brontës “was the best therapy� and remained one of the few topics that still made her “spark into animation�. We can deduce this for ourselves too, as � clearly owes a great deal to “Jane Eyre�; it is almost a retelling of that story, with Daphne du Maurier's idiosyncratic twist. She felt there was a need to investigate Branwell's story; the mysterious figure who seemed to have had such a low self-image that he had painted himself out of his own family portrait of all the siblings:
Branwell remains a shadowy figure here, a ghostly spectre, much as he remains in our thoughts, compared with the astonishing literary achievements and reputations of each of his three sisters. Yet he was the second eldest, out of four (originally six) siblings, and the only male. His sisters all adored him, thinking him to be a genius, the ruler and king over their imagined worlds. He had such confidence as a youngster and such potential, such creative zeal, plus a happy supportive home life ... so what could possibly go wrong?
Branwell Brontë, as we know, was the brother of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. He was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848. He was the fourth child of Patrick and Maria Brontë, a parson, and his wife. His two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, both tragically died young, as did his mother, and this had a traumatic effect on him, as evidenced in his poetry. He was a year younger than Charlotte, a year older than Emily, and three years older than Anne.
The “infernal world� he inhabited had strong roots in his emotional reactions to these compounded deaths. His young sister Maria became, for Branwell, a substitute for his mother who had died in 1821. This plus Elizabeth's death, less than a month after Maria's, affected him greatly,
resulting in the morbidly descriptive poems he wrote at this time.
Branwell never recovered from the crisis in faith which this engendered, becoming severely disturbed, and escaping into his fantasy worlds. These early encounters with death seemed to fuel his compulsion to view the world through the heroic and melodramatic tales he created with his sisters as children.
We feel very strongly Daphne du Maurier's exasperation with Branwell: her frustation that such a bright flame, such a precocious child, should have had his hopes thwarted, his reputation in ruins and his talent fade into virtual obscurity. What do we now know about Branwell Brontë after all, other than that he had a reputation for being an alcoholic - and that he died young?
Yet clearly there is so much more. Despair, that the star of the family, the precocious golden boy, came to such a sorry end. A failed genius, with a tragic decline into early death. Tragic, because even if as the author suggests in the subtext, much of this was not inevitable; Branwell could have made other choices, exasperation with him would be useless. Charlotte and his long-suffering father both felt he could have taken control more. But he had neither the strength nor the resources to counter rejection. Branwell was unable to resist the comforting retreat given his tortured soul by laudanum, a mixture of morphine, opium and alcohol, and also the lure of ego-soothing conviviality he found at the local inn - which of course was fuelled by alcohol. We are shown his sorry story in an exceptionally moving way.
One of the things this biography reveals, in great detail and by giving many examples, is the many startling similarities in both content and style of the Brontë siblings' writings. Daphne du Maurier quotes many instances of how, even when they were apart, echoes of their work together and their imagined worlds can still be found.
There has long been a theory that it was Branwell who had written “Wuthering Heights�. Daphne du Maurier has tracked down evidence, both written and testimonial, from those who witnessed an episode of Branwell reading from an early draft, to show that Branwell and Emily probably collaborated in the first stages of the novel. However, she does not go so far as to think that has been wrongly attributed. It seems more likely, that this was one of many instances where Branwell saw an idea which he considered to be his own (even if only partially) developed, and perhaps capitalised on, and yet again achieved literary kudos for one of his talented sisters. So how did this all start?
In 1826, when Branwell was nine years old, his father brought home a set of toy soldiers:
“Tearing open the box, he had run to his three sisters, and had given each of them one of the little wooden figures. Immediately the soldiers had assumed names and personalities, and round them the four children had built some of their most cherished games. Out of them, indeed, had grown the heroic figures whom the sisters later wove into their tales. The soldier whom Charlotte had dubbed 'Wellesley' was now Rochester, lover of Jane Eyre. 'Parry', Emily's soldier, was Heathcliff, alone on Wuthering Heights. Anne's soldier, 'Ross', had become Arthur Huntingdon, whose wife fled to Wildfell Hall. Only 'Sneaky', his own soldier, later to become Alexander Percy, remained hidden and unknown.�
It was from these games they played that the phenomenon of “AԲ� was born, and in all of their games, and all of Angria, Branwell was the kingpin.
As the only son among five sisters, Branwell always had keen sense of being different, and possibly of being “special�. He it was, who was the leader, and who initiated his sisters into the world-building of “AԲ�, a fantasy land which they all created, and which we can find allusions to in their personal accounts; which clearly influenced their adult writing. We can see examples of all the children's stories of “AԲ� in the Parsonage Museum, written so tiny that one needs a magnifying glass to read them, and deliberately written this way, because of their risque content, involving incest and dastardly deeds.
Together the children role-played the heroes and villains, discussed, invented, and wrote incessantly. Usually Branwell would view himself as “Alexander Percy� the hero, but sometimes Emily - or later Charlotte - would take on this mantle. However none of the sisters seem to have identified so totally with their created hero. Branwell's fixation on “Alexander Percy�, (or ٲԱ�), remained with him throughout his entire life, transmogrifying into an idealised version of his own self and image; a representation of who Branwell desperately wanted to become ... and to have fed his later delusions.
There was a huge variety of stories: “My Angria and the Angrians�, for example, and “Tales of Angria�, including 'Mina Laury', 'Stancliffe's Hotel', 'The Duke of Zamorna', 'Henry Hastings', 'Caroline Vernon', and 'The Roe Head Journal Fragments'. There were great capital cities, invented in the finest detail, and called 'Glasstown' and 'Verdopolis'. In childlike fashion, Anne and Emily were eventually banished from them, and so they created their own island, 'Gondal', and it is here that Emily Brontë's “GDzԻ岹� poems began. Emily was later to copy them into a notebook, in 1844.
There are thousands of pages in the Brontë siblings' tiny handwriting; characters and stories, geography and history, all set in these fantasy countries of “AԲ� and “GDzԻ岹�. Branwell could write with both hands, and had a phenomenal memory. His father was enormously proud of him, teaching him Latin and Greek, and his future looked assured. Such a bright child could surely turn his hand to anything. When an Aunt came to look after all the children, on the death of their mother, she did not even think it necessary to include Branwell in her will (which was to have severe ramifications when she died.)
Perhaps the first indication that Branwell was different, and possibly would not find it easy to make his mark in life, comes from the accounts of him attempting to attend school. Branwell was so nervous and sensitive around other children, that his father decided to teach him at home. He possibly had mental instability too, which now looks very much like a type of epilepsy, but it was undiagnosed at the time. Branwell certainly found the environment and other children very difficult, and revelled in his seclusion which enabled him to develop his exceptional creativity; he wrote poetry and painted. The future still looked bright for Branwell.
With the wisdom of hindsight, we are able to put together the puzzle as those who were involved at the time never could. The book is full of references to the sisters themselves, and the deleterious impact of their success on Branwell's fragile state of mind. This adds a new dimension to our knowledge of the sisters too; an understanding of their own creativity, as well as telling us of their day-to-day lives and their travels. We can also see that Branwell's father never truly understood his son's difficulties, much as he loved him and devoted many hours to Branwell while he himself was ill. He insisted on being there for his son as Branwell threw off his faith - a deeply felt blow for the father - and Branwell's health rapidly declined. When Elizabeth Gaskell published her biography of Charlotte, Mr. Brontë told her:
“The picture of my brilliant and unhappy son is a masterpiece.�
We now see that Branwell may not have been so “brilliant�, and that to a great extent this was wishful thinking. He had neither the dedication nor the stamina to achieve what his sisters had. The siblings may all have had a similar innate amount of talent; it is what they did with it which differs.
Both Mr. Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell stated a belief that an abortive love-affair was the final straw for Branwell, but in truth it looks unlikely. Branwell had a job, tutoring the son of Reverend Edmund Robinson, for whom previously Anne had also worked, as a governess. But Branwell became infatuated with Lydia Robinson, Edmund's wife. There are many varying accounts of this episode. Daphne du Maurier theorises that Branwell may have been dismissed from his post as tutor, because of something to do with Edmund Robinson's attitude to Branwell, rather than any intrigue with his wife. But even this is mere speculation.
Branwell's fantasising and inability to distinguish truth from fiction, had grown by now so profound, that the truth of any “love affair� is likely to be more in his own mind, and impossible to ascertain at this stage. His preoccupation with his own “infernal world� is well documented. By the end of his life Branwell was barely capable of distinguishing what was reality, and what mere fantasy. For example, a friend had arranged to meet Branwell in the “Black Bull Inn� one evening, as his friend was concerned at his rapid decline. Branwell was consumed by his fantasies, and turned up with a carving knife in his sleeve, telling his friend after a while that he had been dreading to meet up with Satan, and was not sure at first who he was.
Branwell had worked as an assistant clerk in charge at Sowerby Bridge railway station, in West Yorkshire, and then later as a clerk in charge. He had been dismissed following the discovery of a deficit in the accounts (most likely a porter had stolen the money whilst Branwell neglected his post). Could this have been the first time Branwell took a dose of laudanum? Perhaps as a result of the shame of dismissal, to dampen what he was feeling, or in a mistaken belief that it would enable him to perform his duties more efficiently?
Branwell probably had a great fear of a convulsive attack seizing him, as it had done in London four years before. Opium was easily and cheaply available, and anything that dulled pain, and had the benefit of stimulating the imagination too, was likely to seem very attractive to Branwell Brontë. He would also view the drug through a rose-tinted romanticism, since it was known that opium had inspired the poets Coleridge and de Quincey. De Quincey said he would take fifty-three ounces of laudanum on one of his peak days, so Branwell considered it would be perfectly safe to take just three ounces. Moreover, it was something which, unlike his drinking, would not be noticed at home, either.
We can see how easily Branwell slipped into his own private “iԴڱԴ�. But it is harder to pinpoint the time at which Branwell could no longer return in his mind to the real world, or resume a normal life. Certainly his early hopes were quashed time and time again. He made friends with a fashionable sculptor, J. B. Leyland, who himself seemed to have a great future ahead of him. (Sadly, in point of fact, Leyland's own fortunes were dashed by a series of unfortunate accidents to his marble sculptures, and lack of money.) Leyland was a very kind man, and acted as a mentor for the young Branwell, and encouraged his artistic ability.
Branwell maintained a strong early belief in himself as a genius, and hoped that others would come to recognise this in time. That recognition was never to come. His family desperately tried to help. Charlotte wrote to Robert Southey, the current Poet Laureate, and Branwell himself wrote to William Wordsworth, who was to become Poet Laureate in 1843. It seems likely that Branwell's letter was very gauche, as he received no reply, a fact which cut him deeply. Wordsworth himself told Southey that Branwell's letter contained:
“gross flattery and plenty of abuse of other poets.�
Branwell wrote to Hartley Coleridge too, who was the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a popular and talented poet of the time, although mostly forgotten now.
Branwell could not take rejection in any form. When he had been rejected by the “Royal Academy� he sought solace in drinking with his old friends from the Railway Company, whom he felt did not judge him. And now he was having similar experiences with his poetry, writing these letters; letters which seem very naive in their self-confidence and criticism of current poets. The later ones go to the other extreme, and seem far too obsequious.
Poor Branwell could never get it right, and each rejection was like a physical blow to him. He even felt his railway jobs were demeaning, although by now strings had had to be pulled to employ him in any capacity at all. Whenever he had experienced criticism in one field, he would switch to another. Was he a painter? Was he a writer? Was he a poet? He had no staying power, no sense of continuity, and of course was self-taught. Because he wanted to be accepted by the establishment, he produced works which seemed quite derivative, and offered them up for inspection, rather than any of the original “AԲ� stories. Perhaps, in some strange way, those stories of his invented “AԲ� had begun to seem sacrosanct to him, and by sharing them he felt he would be sharing part of his own soul.
He certainly had a tempestuous relationship with religion. From his violent rejections of his childhood faith after he watched his mother - and then two of his beloved sisters - one after another die, he moved through burgeoning spiritual beliefs to a brush with freemasonry. We read what it was like to be a freemason in the North of England at this time; what the rites would have been and what Branwell would have known at the “Three Graces Lodge� in Haworth. Daphne du Maurier feels that much of this symbolism and ritual transfers into Branwell's poetry from the time.
Yet true to his personality type, Branwell did not stick to freemasonry. By the end of his life, he had made a sort of peace with his father's Christianity, and prayed with his father as he was dying.
Branwell's death by now seemed inevitable, and on 24th September 1848 it was recorded as due to “chronic bronchitis and marasmus� (wasting of the body). Branwell was 31 years old. A mere six weeks later, in December of that year, Emily was also to die. Then a few months after that, in the following May, came Anne’s death. Charlotte was now left with no siblings.
For such a bold and artistically gifted child, Branwell Brontë must have seemed to have infinite potential and promise to his three adoring sisters, over whom his power, his Angrian rule, was total. Yet even by the time his aunt died, contrary to all expectations of his success, Branwell was destitute, an alcoholic, had a history of broken employment and dismissals, was accused of having an affair with the wife of his employer, and was dependent on the family finances; the pennies Charlotte and her sisters could spare from the money they earned through writing, plus what he could winkle out of his aged father.
It has been said that Branwell Brontë was always very creative, but what he lacked was talent. From a modern perspective, we can see that despite all his early effort, Branwell's works have never been recognised as genius, unlike that of his sisters. Some of his poems are included in Brontë poetry collections and some editions of the Brontë's juvenilia include Branwell's works too. His artistic achievements were unsuccessful too, and his goal to be admitted into the Royal Academy of Arts was never realised. He did for a time work as a portrait painter, but very few of his canvases now survive.
The entire book is a picture of tragedy, of unfulfilled potential. But it is more than that. Branwell was so deluded in his belief of his own creative genius, and so over-estimated his creativeness, that became obsessed with his own “infernal world�, which in truth was an entirely fictitious world, of “AԲ�. He was, of course a victim of the time he was trapped in, of those around him who did not understand his inner demons or temperament, nor properly understand his mental afflictions. But who is to say whether he could have survived, even had Branwell Brontë lived in the 21st century. There are pressures now; they are just very different pressures.
Daphne du Maurier has written a vivid and effective account, which is edifying and affecting in equal measure.
June 15, 2022
The Brontës have long been a subject of fascination for writers and readers alike, with so much talent and so many memorable and powerful writings from the pens of the three sisters (often associated with living in relative seclusion in that small parsonage in Haworth, Yorkshire), and the only brother Patrick Branwell, seen as bold, bad, and drunk bringing about his own doom. From Elizabeth Gaskell who wrote the famous Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) to E.F. Benson’s Charlotte Brontë (1932), or E.M. Delafield in The Brontës: Their Lives Recorded by their Contemporaries (1935), and of course, Juliet Barker’s definitive The Brontës (1995) authors and biographers aplenty have explored this extraordinary family and its genius.
So it should be no surprise when du Maurier did too, particularly considering, as both daphnedumaurier.org and annebronte.org note, the influence on du Maurier of the Brontës whom she began reading at the age of 12 and whose books she found herself returning to again and again. While a poem by Emily was the source of the title of The Loving Spirit, du Maurier’s first novel, the sisters� works are also seen to have influenced Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. When du Maurier was asked to write an introduction to a 1954 edition of Wuthering Heights, she visited Haworth, and during her research began to develop an interest in Branwell. After more thought and much more research, in 1960, she published this book. Of course, as the two sites also confirm (and one can guess too, even if not told), the Cornwall connection that the Brontës had, Maria Branwell having been Cornish, and the children’s upbringing having been in the charge of her sister Elizabeth Branwell after her death, no doubt deepened her interest. Her 1967 book, Vanishing Cornwall, in fact has an entire chapter devoted to the Brontës. The annebronte.org site also highlights another point which may have led to Daphne being more particularly interested in Branwell, which was her husband, Lieutenant General Frederick ‘Boy� Browning’s struggles with alcoholism towards the end of his life, much like Branwell. du Maurier’s biography was perhaps the first that focused on Branwell Bronte for while biographer Winifred Gérin was working on one at the same time, Daphne du Maurier’s was published first.
du Maurier to whom Mrs Gaskell’s biography was ‘unsurpassable�, saw her own biography as only a starting point, an introduction to Branwell’s life and work, which will ultimately be the subject of a definitive biography. But what she did also intend to do was to bring ‘some measure of understanding for a figure long maligned, neglected and despised� and ‘to reinstate him in his original place in the Brontë family�.
To form a picture of Branwell Brontë, separate myth from reality, and explore the question of whether Branwell was a genius thwarted or just the drunken wastrel of popular lore, du Maurier relies on not only biographical material published so far and the family’s correspondence and papers, but most importantly on those manuscripts the siblings produced as children—tales of the worlds they created—of Angria, of Glasstown, of Gondal—where dreams and fantasies played out but also reflections of the real—and which was in a way the infernal world created by their minds to which Charlotte and Branwell, as du Maurier believed, often returned for solace (Interestingly, Hartley Coleridge whom Branwell went on to befriend, had also created a similar place Ejuxria). du Maurier’s biography I felt read somewhat on the same lines as Nancy Mitford’s Madame de Pompadour which I read last month, written based on strong research but framed not as an academic biography but directed to the general reader.
In the book, Branwell does come across as a rather intriguing person, and perhaps one’s view of his genius would depend on how one saw his many talents. True, his writings and his verse were not (as du Maurier acknowledges right at the start) at par with what his sisters produced and as he deteriorated, so did the quality of his work. Yet he was their ‘leader� in childhood, the ‘Chief Genius Branii� who directed their plans and games, who played a central role in developing the world of Angria with Charlotte, writing over the years, pages and pages of tales and verse, building and destroying kingdoms, bringing to life (and killing off) characters. While left-handed, he was able to write letters with both hands—at the same time! He could speak in entirely different accents on different days of the week. He also painted, with some ambition of wanting to enter the Royal Academy over which episode there is some confusion and the version du Maurier presents being different from what was subsequently shown by others. He was also a Freemason, initiated into the local lodge, worked in the railways, as a tutor, tried to set up a career as a painter, and had literary ambitions.
But while he may have had dreams and ambitions aplenty, all sadly failed to come through, with either circumstances or his own mistakes coming in the way, like his somewhat arrogant letter seeking to be included as a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine or to Wordsworth seeking an appraisal of his work. Having had to be educated entirely at home (due most likely to epilepsy that afflicted him from the start), and not exposed to school like his sisters were and also to directly face death of his older sisters and later his aunt, would have had their impact. This du Maurier feels (and illustrates) is reflected in his Angrian poetry, as are many of those he met in real life; life for Branwell’s Angrian counterpart, Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland also making up for what he saw as his own failures and shortcomings in the real world (in appearance, temperament and deed). Constant disappointments would have certainly increased his resentments and sent him on that downward spiral, seeing not only his own deterioration but also that of his relationship with his family.
du Maurier raises some interesting questions, surrounding for instance, the real causes of Maria and Elizabeth Brontë’s deaths, the plans for admission at the Royal Academy, Branwell’s possible contributions to what became Wuthering Heights, and also around his affair with his employer’s wife Mrs Robinson, and brings up the idea of how some incidents and happenings associated with Branwell in real life might well have been mere reflections of what was playing out in the infernal world, and so not quite as real as one believes them to be. She does also speculate, based on the material she relies on and the character of the people she’s writing of, but also on the idea that much of Branwell’s reality was reflected in some guise or other in Angria and of the Angrian world at times spilling out into the real—at least in Branwell’s mind.
The book does evoke pity and sympathy for Branwell—he mayn’t have been quite the genius he and others believed he was—yet perhaps a different set of circumstances, different opportunities could have developed his talents, led him to a better position than the one he ended up in. He did squander the few opportunities he got at earning a living, but none were really of the creative kind which was where his dreams lay, and when his sisters began to see success, where his own attempts were repeatedly unsuccessful, one can understand the resentment, feelings of inadequacy or failure, and turns to drink or laudanum coming in. And here too, while many of his misdemeanours were attributed to his drunkenness, at his time, not enough account was taken of his epilepsy for the state that he often ended in. du Maurier certainly feels for her subject, and certainly gets one to see that there was far more to him than one perhaps knew.
du Maurier I think has given us a very readable biography, and one which for me (I must admit though that I’ve only so far read Mrs Gaskell’s book, while Benson’s is on my TBR and the Barker still feels intimidating) gave many new insights into Branwell Brontë and his world—his many talents, and importantly (one that relates to all four) also that Haworth wasn’t quite the uninteresting place one thinks it would be. One does wonder about her speculations, no doubt, but these didn’t really for me take away from the readability of the book. I would have liked though if some of the extracts included were trimmed down a bit: on some occasions I felt they ran too long.
An interesting and engaging read.
3.75 stars
So it should be no surprise when du Maurier did too, particularly considering, as both daphnedumaurier.org and annebronte.org note, the influence on du Maurier of the Brontës whom she began reading at the age of 12 and whose books she found herself returning to again and again. While a poem by Emily was the source of the title of The Loving Spirit, du Maurier’s first novel, the sisters� works are also seen to have influenced Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. When du Maurier was asked to write an introduction to a 1954 edition of Wuthering Heights, she visited Haworth, and during her research began to develop an interest in Branwell. After more thought and much more research, in 1960, she published this book. Of course, as the two sites also confirm (and one can guess too, even if not told), the Cornwall connection that the Brontës had, Maria Branwell having been Cornish, and the children’s upbringing having been in the charge of her sister Elizabeth Branwell after her death, no doubt deepened her interest. Her 1967 book, Vanishing Cornwall, in fact has an entire chapter devoted to the Brontës. The annebronte.org site also highlights another point which may have led to Daphne being more particularly interested in Branwell, which was her husband, Lieutenant General Frederick ‘Boy� Browning’s struggles with alcoholism towards the end of his life, much like Branwell. du Maurier’s biography was perhaps the first that focused on Branwell Bronte for while biographer Winifred Gérin was working on one at the same time, Daphne du Maurier’s was published first.
du Maurier to whom Mrs Gaskell’s biography was ‘unsurpassable�, saw her own biography as only a starting point, an introduction to Branwell’s life and work, which will ultimately be the subject of a definitive biography. But what she did also intend to do was to bring ‘some measure of understanding for a figure long maligned, neglected and despised� and ‘to reinstate him in his original place in the Brontë family�.
To form a picture of Branwell Brontë, separate myth from reality, and explore the question of whether Branwell was a genius thwarted or just the drunken wastrel of popular lore, du Maurier relies on not only biographical material published so far and the family’s correspondence and papers, but most importantly on those manuscripts the siblings produced as children—tales of the worlds they created—of Angria, of Glasstown, of Gondal—where dreams and fantasies played out but also reflections of the real—and which was in a way the infernal world created by their minds to which Charlotte and Branwell, as du Maurier believed, often returned for solace (Interestingly, Hartley Coleridge whom Branwell went on to befriend, had also created a similar place Ejuxria). du Maurier’s biography I felt read somewhat on the same lines as Nancy Mitford’s Madame de Pompadour which I read last month, written based on strong research but framed not as an academic biography but directed to the general reader.
In the book, Branwell does come across as a rather intriguing person, and perhaps one’s view of his genius would depend on how one saw his many talents. True, his writings and his verse were not (as du Maurier acknowledges right at the start) at par with what his sisters produced and as he deteriorated, so did the quality of his work. Yet he was their ‘leader� in childhood, the ‘Chief Genius Branii� who directed their plans and games, who played a central role in developing the world of Angria with Charlotte, writing over the years, pages and pages of tales and verse, building and destroying kingdoms, bringing to life (and killing off) characters. While left-handed, he was able to write letters with both hands—at the same time! He could speak in entirely different accents on different days of the week. He also painted, with some ambition of wanting to enter the Royal Academy over which episode there is some confusion and the version du Maurier presents being different from what was subsequently shown by others. He was also a Freemason, initiated into the local lodge, worked in the railways, as a tutor, tried to set up a career as a painter, and had literary ambitions.
But while he may have had dreams and ambitions aplenty, all sadly failed to come through, with either circumstances or his own mistakes coming in the way, like his somewhat arrogant letter seeking to be included as a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine or to Wordsworth seeking an appraisal of his work. Having had to be educated entirely at home (due most likely to epilepsy that afflicted him from the start), and not exposed to school like his sisters were and also to directly face death of his older sisters and later his aunt, would have had their impact. This du Maurier feels (and illustrates) is reflected in his Angrian poetry, as are many of those he met in real life; life for Branwell’s Angrian counterpart, Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland also making up for what he saw as his own failures and shortcomings in the real world (in appearance, temperament and deed). Constant disappointments would have certainly increased his resentments and sent him on that downward spiral, seeing not only his own deterioration but also that of his relationship with his family.
du Maurier raises some interesting questions, surrounding for instance, the real causes of Maria and Elizabeth Brontë’s deaths, the plans for admission at the Royal Academy, Branwell’s possible contributions to what became Wuthering Heights, and also around his affair with his employer’s wife Mrs Robinson, and brings up the idea of how some incidents and happenings associated with Branwell in real life might well have been mere reflections of what was playing out in the infernal world, and so not quite as real as one believes them to be. She does also speculate, based on the material she relies on and the character of the people she’s writing of, but also on the idea that much of Branwell’s reality was reflected in some guise or other in Angria and of the Angrian world at times spilling out into the real—at least in Branwell’s mind.
The book does evoke pity and sympathy for Branwell—he mayn’t have been quite the genius he and others believed he was—yet perhaps a different set of circumstances, different opportunities could have developed his talents, led him to a better position than the one he ended up in. He did squander the few opportunities he got at earning a living, but none were really of the creative kind which was where his dreams lay, and when his sisters began to see success, where his own attempts were repeatedly unsuccessful, one can understand the resentment, feelings of inadequacy or failure, and turns to drink or laudanum coming in. And here too, while many of his misdemeanours were attributed to his drunkenness, at his time, not enough account was taken of his epilepsy for the state that he often ended in. du Maurier certainly feels for her subject, and certainly gets one to see that there was far more to him than one perhaps knew.
du Maurier I think has given us a very readable biography, and one which for me (I must admit though that I’ve only so far read Mrs Gaskell’s book, while Benson’s is on my TBR and the Barker still feels intimidating) gave many new insights into Branwell Brontë and his world—his many talents, and importantly (one that relates to all four) also that Haworth wasn’t quite the uninteresting place one thinks it would be. One does wonder about her speculations, no doubt, but these didn’t really for me take away from the readability of the book. I would have liked though if some of the extracts included were trimmed down a bit: on some occasions I felt they ran too long.
An interesting and engaging read.
3.75 stars
August 5, 2015
Daphne du Maurier renders a sympathetic portrait of a tragic and tortured soul who, despite early promise, descended into illness, addiction, and self-defeating behavior. We have probably all known someone like Branwell, bright but deluded, with failures resulting from the damning combination of poor constitution and poor choices.
Some less favorable reviews of this biography criticize its speculation, but I appreciated du Maurier's fleshing out of Branwell's behavior and character. It was easy, at least for me, to separate recitations of known fact from the author's ideas of probable reality and her reconstructive guesswork.
The greatest strength of this biography is the use of Branwell's writings, partcularly his Angrian narratives, to construct a psychological portrait. His "infernal world" is the lens through which he might best be understood, and du Maurier effectively threads this theme to unify the work.
Some less favorable reviews of this biography criticize its speculation, but I appreciated du Maurier's fleshing out of Branwell's behavior and character. It was easy, at least for me, to separate recitations of known fact from the author's ideas of probable reality and her reconstructive guesswork.
The greatest strength of this biography is the use of Branwell's writings, partcularly his Angrian narratives, to construct a psychological portrait. His "infernal world" is the lens through which he might best be understood, and du Maurier effectively threads this theme to unify the work.
March 5, 2009
I've always been a little obsessed with the Brontes- I don't know, maybe I was their cousin or something in a past life. I'm also a proclaimed Daphne DuMaurier fanatic. So imagine my excitement to find Ms. DuMaurier's biography of that mysterious, supposed-genius brother, Branwell Bronte. This book is short, as was the life of its subject and his sisters. But this review's gonna be long, so bear with me.
Now, I'd heard rumors- mostly college professor gossip- about Branwell during the years. That he really was the one who wrote Wuthering Heights (!!), that he was an addict, a failed genius, tortured, the real Heathcliff, etc. Never having read about him, I concocted a vision of him. In my vision, he was a tall, brooding pale male specimen, with auburn curls and possibly a beard. Hazel eyes, a reproachful voice, cigarette in hands. A nineteenth-century James Dean. I was a little upset to read that I'd gotten only the hair and skin color right. Apparently Branwell Bronte resembled a red-headed Woody Allen more than the fifties film icon.
Sadly, the rumors about the tortured mind were true. Honestly, the first couple of chapters were so dry that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to continue. But I did. The Bronte siblings had a sad early life: their mother and two older sisters passed away when Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were all children. They had a loving father and aunt to take care of them, though- and although they weren't well-off, it doesn't appear that they were suffering for money either.
The Bronte siblings wove stories at a young age, collaborating on romantic epics when most people their age were probably playing kick-the-can or whatever 19th century kids did. Branwell was apparently the most prolific. He was "The Boy." And being the "Boy" in an all-girls family in the 1800s, big dreams were pinned upon him. Branwell was a genius- a multi-talented prodigy. He would shine, he would make his family proud.
Then things went downhill. First of all, his father refused to send him to school with his sisters. No reason for this decision is provided. Du Maurier speculates that something was wrong with him emotionally. She carries these speculations throughout the book- that maybe Branwell was epileptic or had some form of schizophrenia. But there is no concrete evidence that supports her speculations.
Apparently Branwell was cheerful good company, and a little full of himself (he was, after all, "The Son"). But whereas the Bronte sisters make it a point to earn steady incomes and write books, Branwell can't stick to one project, job, etc. He's aimless, and he changes his mind frequently. At 23, the "Son" that everyone had pinned such high hopes on is fired from two jobs as a rail station clerk. He's unemployed and mopes (trust me, in this economy, I can sympathize). He takes a job as a tutor and is fired from that for 'inappropriate conduct.' I think we can all read between the lines there, but it's still pure speculation as to what happened. Branwell tells his family that it was a love affair between him and the employer's wife, but Du Maurier has establised that Branwell often can't distinguish reality from fantasy. After that failed job, Branwell spends his time abusing alcohol and laudanum while his sisters make a living through their writing and teaching.
Branwell's story has a sad end- demise at age 31 from abuse of his body and a broken heart. But the thing is- again, what SPECIFICALLY caused Branwell to take this turn? DuMaurier chalks it up to his sensitive nature, combined with the deaths of his older sisters, the pressure of performing as the brilliant only son, and mental illness. The last factor is never proven- it seems that Branwell did have adult ADD possibly, but that's it. As for the sensitivity and family deaths, his sisters went through the same things he did, so what prompted them to soldier on and him to just give up?
This question got me thinking about larger issues, such as what specifically causes the members of the same close-knit family to diverge in such opposite directions? I think hardiness of character is a big role. DuMaurier doesn't come out and say this in her bio, but it's hard for the reader not to think it. An example:
Both Charlotte and Branwell had sent examples of their amateur work to Wordsworth for his commentary (which is kind of like me mailing my short stories to Margaret Atwood asking her to tell me if they're any good, but I digress). Branwell didn't receive a reply, and as for Charlotte, Wordsworth pretty much thought her a bimbo. Ouch! But where Branwell was floored by this and other failures, Charlotte persevered with her writing, even after her self-published poems and first novel failed.
I'm sympathetic to Branwell- it's hard not to be when you're done reading this book. But I also take it as a warning- make sure you're on the Charlotte path in life and not the Branwell.
Charlotte, the only Bronte sibling left after the fame said this about her brother, when trying to figure out how exactly he went wrong, "I seemed to receive an oppressive revelation of the feebleness of humanity; of the inadequacy of even genius to lead to true greatness if unaided by religion and principle."
It sounds harsh, but I think, and perhaps Du Maurier, if she were alive, would agree, that Branwell wanted the greatness of life, but not the effort that's needed to gain it. Still, he was his sister's muse and joy- I believe that his presence played a role in their feverish literary conceptions, and that's good enough for me.
PS- He didn't write WH, but it's possible that Emily had gotten the idea from him.
Now, I'd heard rumors- mostly college professor gossip- about Branwell during the years. That he really was the one who wrote Wuthering Heights (!!), that he was an addict, a failed genius, tortured, the real Heathcliff, etc. Never having read about him, I concocted a vision of him. In my vision, he was a tall, brooding pale male specimen, with auburn curls and possibly a beard. Hazel eyes, a reproachful voice, cigarette in hands. A nineteenth-century James Dean. I was a little upset to read that I'd gotten only the hair and skin color right. Apparently Branwell Bronte resembled a red-headed Woody Allen more than the fifties film icon.
Sadly, the rumors about the tortured mind were true. Honestly, the first couple of chapters were so dry that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to continue. But I did. The Bronte siblings had a sad early life: their mother and two older sisters passed away when Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were all children. They had a loving father and aunt to take care of them, though- and although they weren't well-off, it doesn't appear that they were suffering for money either.
The Bronte siblings wove stories at a young age, collaborating on romantic epics when most people their age were probably playing kick-the-can or whatever 19th century kids did. Branwell was apparently the most prolific. He was "The Boy." And being the "Boy" in an all-girls family in the 1800s, big dreams were pinned upon him. Branwell was a genius- a multi-talented prodigy. He would shine, he would make his family proud.
Then things went downhill. First of all, his father refused to send him to school with his sisters. No reason for this decision is provided. Du Maurier speculates that something was wrong with him emotionally. She carries these speculations throughout the book- that maybe Branwell was epileptic or had some form of schizophrenia. But there is no concrete evidence that supports her speculations.
Apparently Branwell was cheerful good company, and a little full of himself (he was, after all, "The Son"). But whereas the Bronte sisters make it a point to earn steady incomes and write books, Branwell can't stick to one project, job, etc. He's aimless, and he changes his mind frequently. At 23, the "Son" that everyone had pinned such high hopes on is fired from two jobs as a rail station clerk. He's unemployed and mopes (trust me, in this economy, I can sympathize). He takes a job as a tutor and is fired from that for 'inappropriate conduct.' I think we can all read between the lines there, but it's still pure speculation as to what happened. Branwell tells his family that it was a love affair between him and the employer's wife, but Du Maurier has establised that Branwell often can't distinguish reality from fantasy. After that failed job, Branwell spends his time abusing alcohol and laudanum while his sisters make a living through their writing and teaching.
Branwell's story has a sad end- demise at age 31 from abuse of his body and a broken heart. But the thing is- again, what SPECIFICALLY caused Branwell to take this turn? DuMaurier chalks it up to his sensitive nature, combined with the deaths of his older sisters, the pressure of performing as the brilliant only son, and mental illness. The last factor is never proven- it seems that Branwell did have adult ADD possibly, but that's it. As for the sensitivity and family deaths, his sisters went through the same things he did, so what prompted them to soldier on and him to just give up?
This question got me thinking about larger issues, such as what specifically causes the members of the same close-knit family to diverge in such opposite directions? I think hardiness of character is a big role. DuMaurier doesn't come out and say this in her bio, but it's hard for the reader not to think it. An example:
Both Charlotte and Branwell had sent examples of their amateur work to Wordsworth for his commentary (which is kind of like me mailing my short stories to Margaret Atwood asking her to tell me if they're any good, but I digress). Branwell didn't receive a reply, and as for Charlotte, Wordsworth pretty much thought her a bimbo. Ouch! But where Branwell was floored by this and other failures, Charlotte persevered with her writing, even after her self-published poems and first novel failed.
I'm sympathetic to Branwell- it's hard not to be when you're done reading this book. But I also take it as a warning- make sure you're on the Charlotte path in life and not the Branwell.
Charlotte, the only Bronte sibling left after the fame said this about her brother, when trying to figure out how exactly he went wrong, "I seemed to receive an oppressive revelation of the feebleness of humanity; of the inadequacy of even genius to lead to true greatness if unaided by religion and principle."
It sounds harsh, but I think, and perhaps Du Maurier, if she were alive, would agree, that Branwell wanted the greatness of life, but not the effort that's needed to gain it. Still, he was his sister's muse and joy- I believe that his presence played a role in their feverish literary conceptions, and that's good enough for me.
PS- He didn't write WH, but it's possible that Emily had gotten the idea from him.
March 13, 2022
دنیای جهنمی
ترجمه غلامحسین اعرابی
انتشارات اردیبهشت
1365 چاپ اول
ترجمه غلامحسین اعرابی
انتشارات اردیبهشت
1365 چاپ اول
May 16, 2018
For my full review:
As a child, I remember being puzzled to learn that the Brontë sisters had actually had a brother, even more so when I learnt that he was represented by the weird ghostly object standing behind them in the portrait. That painting has become the symbol of Branwell over time - present yet absent, the phantom at the feast. Branwell's very blankness has made him a canvas on which Brontëphiles can write any story they wish. So, Branwell is the tortured soul, the thwarted poet, the inspiration for Heathcliff, the first of the siblings to be published, surely as talented as they - and so the tales have grown taller until the Brontës' benighted brother becomes the true author of everything they ever wrote. The idea that three talented women who lived under one roof must have needed masculine inspiration is never one that has appealed to me, but one can imagine that to the author ofRebecca, someone with an established fascination with the power of the absentee, the figure of Branwell must have seemed full of imaginative potential.Infernal Worldalways had the lowest sales out of all du Maurier's works, but it was a true passion project for its creator. Was it possible that du Maurier would be able to win me over to Branwell's cause?
Du Maurier was a lifelong Brontë aficionado; critics caught early the parallels betweenJane Eyreand du Maurier'sRebeccaand even in her final days, the nurses reported that she found talking about the Brontës was 'the best therapy'. However, in the late 1950s, there were various personal factors which meant that Branwell was perhaps her most relevant Brontë, not least the fact that her husband had recently suffered an alcohol-induced nervous breakdown. Even while this may have made her more sympathetic to Branwell's waves of depression and collapse, it may also explain the tone of frustration which seeps through in her attitude towards her subject. Add to that, in the middle of her research, du Maurier discovered that Winifred Gerin was also writing a biography on Branwell, which seems to have prompted a good deal of self-imposedpressure to gether book finished first. Of course, the irony is that all of Gerin's biographies are currently out of print but thanks to its author's fame,Infernal Worldhas retained its place in Brontë scholarship.
In truth, the book is something of a period piece. du Maurier's description of spotting Branwell's outline in the Pillar Portrait does feel quite antiquated, 'Close inspection of the group has lately shown that what was thought to be a pillar is, in reality, the painted-out head and shoulders of the artist himself. The broad high forehead, the hair puffed at the sides, the line of coat and collar, all are there.' In 1960, the notion of Branwell lurking in the background was intriguing, but flash forward another sixty years and as the oils on the canvas degrade further (Branwell never did quite the hang of the medium), he is becoming increasingly hard to miss.
Similarly, du Maurier intones solemnly that the Deceased Wife's Sister Act prevented any union between Branwell's father Patrick and their live-in Aunt Branwell. For du Maurier, this law is still in recent history and so she sees the Brontë household as one of the many the sad consequences of this unjust legislation. We do not necessarily look on them in that light now.Infernal Worldis also dated by lack of access to more recently discovered information, so she spends time pondering Branwell's failure to get into the Royal Academy while Juliet Barker has since proven that he never went to London to apply for a place. Even the very fact that du Maurier's Preface pays tribute to the 'unsurpassed'Life of Charlotte Brontëas the definitive word on the family emphasises her book's vintage, given that for many years Mrs Gaskell's once respected book has been filed under fiction.
It was fascinating however to read inInfernal Worldthe push-pull between biographer and subject. Du Maurier is clearly drawn to the young boy full of promise, determined to find him a Byronic hero. She sets out her stall early that she wishes to understand why Branwell could never break free of his own imagination, why he was never able to equal his sisters despite his early promise, but yet over time the reader begins to sense her frustration with him. His letters to Blackwood's Magazinedemanding to be publishedareincredibly arrogant. His poetryisinferior to that of Emily or Anne. For all that he wrote about dynamic heroes in his Angrian tales, he was demonstrably not of that ilk himself. As she realises that he fails to live up to what she had expected him to be, du Maurier noticeably loses interest.
Infernal Worldis kin to Gaskell's book in that it tells us as much about the preoccupations of its creator as it does about its intended central focus. Du Maurier refuses to engage with the notion of Branwell having had an affair at Thorp Green with Mrs Lydia Robinson, his employer's wife, although documented evidence released in subsequent years does tend to support this as the only likely explanation for his dismissal from his role as tutor. Instead, she muses on a possible infatuation with Mrs Robinson's daughter, confusingly also called Lydia, who somehow became confused in his addled mind with her mother. More obliquely, she also suggests that he may have misbehaved with his young charge Edmund, who was only fourteen. The suggestion is that the debauched Branwell was unable to disentangle himself from his fictional Angrian avatar Percy and that this caused him to somehow expose himself at Thorp Green belongs more within the pages of du Maurier's fiction than here.
In a similar vein, du Maurier's attempts to gather evidence that Emily and Branwell collaborated at some point onWuthering Heights fail to convince. She seems to rely on the popular (but entirely undocumented) theory that Emily and Branwell were somehow close. Furthermore, du Maurier's decision that Branwell must have suffered from epilepsy feels wildly speculative. Du Maurier has carried out her research, read all available texts, but then has chosen to go her own way in terms of biographical content. There is a distinct flavour of cherry-picking to suit her own theories, so Anne Brontë'sAgnes Grey is deemed to not be intended as a realistic depiction of the Robinson family as du Maurier is sure that Anne would never have suggested her brother to come work at Thorp Green had her employer been as likely to lead him astray as the Murrays inAgnes. Then, mere paragraphs later, du Maurier cites the description inAgnes Greyof Rosalie Murray as proof of Lydia Robinson's beauty and a sure sign that it was she rather than her mother who caught Branwell's eye. Reading other people's reviews ofInfernal World, I was surprised to read so many regarded it as a reliable portrayal of the 'true' Branwell Brontë.
Infernal Worldis a confused little book, both readable and yet not necessarily a book I imagine myself returning to. Finishing it, I did not feel that I had gained any greater understanding of Branwell himself, although du Maurier's extensive quotations of his poetry was enough to make it sadly clear that any notions of him having ghost-written his sister's books are entirely built on fantasy. What came across most of all was how many excuses have been made for Branwell down the years - he was too delicate for school, he was the hope and pride of the family, he would be a celebrated portrait painter, he would be a fine tutor, he would become rich on the railways, he would, he would, he would. He neverdid. He neverdid anything. He died as a man in his thirties living off his father, scamming money from anyone soft-hearted enough to lend it to him, in debt and addicted to gin and opium.
To describe him as 'tortured' and 'misunderstood' or 'in need of help' abdicates him of his responsibilities. The world we live in is very keen to make excuses for men who are old enough to know better, to recast them as boys who need to be saved. Even du Maurier is keen to excuse Branwell, to cry out against the injustice that Charlotte and Emily got to study abroad in Belgium while Branwell did not, despite the fact that they did so after carefully presenting a business proposal to Aunt Branwell that said studying would help their future employment prospects. Branwell's sisters were women making their way in the nineteenth century, an unforgiving time for women. They knuckled down and they worked. To make excuses for Branwell's lack of focus, to imply that his family did not put him front and centre, goes beyond the myth-making which sets the tone forInfernal Worldand becomes truly ludicrous.
I put off readingInfernal Worldfor years because I suspected that du Maurier was attempting to make excuses for Branwell's mis-spent life at the expense of his sisters. I have always been baffled and rather affronted by how keen people are to look past the three talented women to gaze instead upon their ne'er-do-well brother as the most fascinating fact about them. Ultimately, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated because Daphne du Maurier is a highly atmospheric writer who was also clearly a devoted Brontë fan. What she lacks in academic rigour, she makes up for in how she sets the scene, so that while I agreed with but few of her theories, I could nonetheless enjoy the ride. Because of this,Infernal Worldwas of greater interest to me as a fan of du Maurier than for effective Brontë brooding material.I have a theory that the secret of Branwell Brontë is that he was the least interesting resident of Haworth Parsonage but I am not sure if that idea is one likely to catch on.
As a child, I remember being puzzled to learn that the Brontë sisters had actually had a brother, even more so when I learnt that he was represented by the weird ghostly object standing behind them in the portrait. That painting has become the symbol of Branwell over time - present yet absent, the phantom at the feast. Branwell's very blankness has made him a canvas on which Brontëphiles can write any story they wish. So, Branwell is the tortured soul, the thwarted poet, the inspiration for Heathcliff, the first of the siblings to be published, surely as talented as they - and so the tales have grown taller until the Brontës' benighted brother becomes the true author of everything they ever wrote. The idea that three talented women who lived under one roof must have needed masculine inspiration is never one that has appealed to me, but one can imagine that to the author ofRebecca, someone with an established fascination with the power of the absentee, the figure of Branwell must have seemed full of imaginative potential.Infernal Worldalways had the lowest sales out of all du Maurier's works, but it was a true passion project for its creator. Was it possible that du Maurier would be able to win me over to Branwell's cause?
Du Maurier was a lifelong Brontë aficionado; critics caught early the parallels betweenJane Eyreand du Maurier'sRebeccaand even in her final days, the nurses reported that she found talking about the Brontës was 'the best therapy'. However, in the late 1950s, there were various personal factors which meant that Branwell was perhaps her most relevant Brontë, not least the fact that her husband had recently suffered an alcohol-induced nervous breakdown. Even while this may have made her more sympathetic to Branwell's waves of depression and collapse, it may also explain the tone of frustration which seeps through in her attitude towards her subject. Add to that, in the middle of her research, du Maurier discovered that Winifred Gerin was also writing a biography on Branwell, which seems to have prompted a good deal of self-imposedpressure to gether book finished first. Of course, the irony is that all of Gerin's biographies are currently out of print but thanks to its author's fame,Infernal Worldhas retained its place in Brontë scholarship.
In truth, the book is something of a period piece. du Maurier's description of spotting Branwell's outline in the Pillar Portrait does feel quite antiquated, 'Close inspection of the group has lately shown that what was thought to be a pillar is, in reality, the painted-out head and shoulders of the artist himself. The broad high forehead, the hair puffed at the sides, the line of coat and collar, all are there.' In 1960, the notion of Branwell lurking in the background was intriguing, but flash forward another sixty years and as the oils on the canvas degrade further (Branwell never did quite the hang of the medium), he is becoming increasingly hard to miss.
Similarly, du Maurier intones solemnly that the Deceased Wife's Sister Act prevented any union between Branwell's father Patrick and their live-in Aunt Branwell. For du Maurier, this law is still in recent history and so she sees the Brontë household as one of the many the sad consequences of this unjust legislation. We do not necessarily look on them in that light now.Infernal Worldis also dated by lack of access to more recently discovered information, so she spends time pondering Branwell's failure to get into the Royal Academy while Juliet Barker has since proven that he never went to London to apply for a place. Even the very fact that du Maurier's Preface pays tribute to the 'unsurpassed'Life of Charlotte Brontëas the definitive word on the family emphasises her book's vintage, given that for many years Mrs Gaskell's once respected book has been filed under fiction.
It was fascinating however to read inInfernal Worldthe push-pull between biographer and subject. Du Maurier is clearly drawn to the young boy full of promise, determined to find him a Byronic hero. She sets out her stall early that she wishes to understand why Branwell could never break free of his own imagination, why he was never able to equal his sisters despite his early promise, but yet over time the reader begins to sense her frustration with him. His letters to Blackwood's Magazinedemanding to be publishedareincredibly arrogant. His poetryisinferior to that of Emily or Anne. For all that he wrote about dynamic heroes in his Angrian tales, he was demonstrably not of that ilk himself. As she realises that he fails to live up to what she had expected him to be, du Maurier noticeably loses interest.
Infernal Worldis kin to Gaskell's book in that it tells us as much about the preoccupations of its creator as it does about its intended central focus. Du Maurier refuses to engage with the notion of Branwell having had an affair at Thorp Green with Mrs Lydia Robinson, his employer's wife, although documented evidence released in subsequent years does tend to support this as the only likely explanation for his dismissal from his role as tutor. Instead, she muses on a possible infatuation with Mrs Robinson's daughter, confusingly also called Lydia, who somehow became confused in his addled mind with her mother. More obliquely, she also suggests that he may have misbehaved with his young charge Edmund, who was only fourteen. The suggestion is that the debauched Branwell was unable to disentangle himself from his fictional Angrian avatar Percy and that this caused him to somehow expose himself at Thorp Green belongs more within the pages of du Maurier's fiction than here.
In a similar vein, du Maurier's attempts to gather evidence that Emily and Branwell collaborated at some point onWuthering Heights fail to convince. She seems to rely on the popular (but entirely undocumented) theory that Emily and Branwell were somehow close. Furthermore, du Maurier's decision that Branwell must have suffered from epilepsy feels wildly speculative. Du Maurier has carried out her research, read all available texts, but then has chosen to go her own way in terms of biographical content. There is a distinct flavour of cherry-picking to suit her own theories, so Anne Brontë'sAgnes Grey is deemed to not be intended as a realistic depiction of the Robinson family as du Maurier is sure that Anne would never have suggested her brother to come work at Thorp Green had her employer been as likely to lead him astray as the Murrays inAgnes. Then, mere paragraphs later, du Maurier cites the description inAgnes Greyof Rosalie Murray as proof of Lydia Robinson's beauty and a sure sign that it was she rather than her mother who caught Branwell's eye. Reading other people's reviews ofInfernal World, I was surprised to read so many regarded it as a reliable portrayal of the 'true' Branwell Brontë.
Infernal Worldis a confused little book, both readable and yet not necessarily a book I imagine myself returning to. Finishing it, I did not feel that I had gained any greater understanding of Branwell himself, although du Maurier's extensive quotations of his poetry was enough to make it sadly clear that any notions of him having ghost-written his sister's books are entirely built on fantasy. What came across most of all was how many excuses have been made for Branwell down the years - he was too delicate for school, he was the hope and pride of the family, he would be a celebrated portrait painter, he would be a fine tutor, he would become rich on the railways, he would, he would, he would. He neverdid. He neverdid anything. He died as a man in his thirties living off his father, scamming money from anyone soft-hearted enough to lend it to him, in debt and addicted to gin and opium.
To describe him as 'tortured' and 'misunderstood' or 'in need of help' abdicates him of his responsibilities. The world we live in is very keen to make excuses for men who are old enough to know better, to recast them as boys who need to be saved. Even du Maurier is keen to excuse Branwell, to cry out against the injustice that Charlotte and Emily got to study abroad in Belgium while Branwell did not, despite the fact that they did so after carefully presenting a business proposal to Aunt Branwell that said studying would help their future employment prospects. Branwell's sisters were women making their way in the nineteenth century, an unforgiving time for women. They knuckled down and they worked. To make excuses for Branwell's lack of focus, to imply that his family did not put him front and centre, goes beyond the myth-making which sets the tone forInfernal Worldand becomes truly ludicrous.
I put off readingInfernal Worldfor years because I suspected that du Maurier was attempting to make excuses for Branwell's mis-spent life at the expense of his sisters. I have always been baffled and rather affronted by how keen people are to look past the three talented women to gaze instead upon their ne'er-do-well brother as the most fascinating fact about them. Ultimately, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated because Daphne du Maurier is a highly atmospheric writer who was also clearly a devoted Brontë fan. What she lacks in academic rigour, she makes up for in how she sets the scene, so that while I agreed with but few of her theories, I could nonetheless enjoy the ride. Because of this,Infernal Worldwas of greater interest to me as a fan of du Maurier than for effective Brontë brooding material.I have a theory that the secret of Branwell Brontë is that he was the least interesting resident of Haworth Parsonage but I am not sure if that idea is one likely to catch on.
August 13, 2020
Having enjoyed some of the author's novels, I was intrigued to see what she would make of the character of the only male Bronte sibling. I have made allowances for the fact that this book was written a long time ago, ahead of the more modern scholarship such as the huge biography of the whole Bronte family written by Juliet Barker, which I read alongside this, but there are many weaknesses.
In places it is quite obvious that the novelist has taken over from the biographer, with scenes and dialogue constructed from surmise or outright fictionalising. In others, as Barker's book makes clear, du Maurier, like most of the biographers who followed Elizabeth Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronte", takes its steer from that book on many aspects, although du Maurier doesn't quite turn the family's father, Patrick, into the monster portrayed by Gaskell.
Some of du Maurier's speculation reads oddly these days. Because it appears that the young son of his employer Mr Robinson remained behind with him while the rest of the family went to Scarborough and it is only after the son apparently arrived there that Mr Robinson wrote a letter sacking Branwell in very strong terms, she comes up with the theory that he must have tried to make paedophilic advances to the boy. This would be far more shocking than the reality - that Branwell had been either having an affair with his employer's wife or at least showing inappropriate attraction to her. du Maurier dismisses Branwell's own explanation to his family for why he has lost his job as tutor - an affair with Mrs Robinson - because she has a fixed idea that he was increasingly lost in an unreal melodramatic world based on his childhood writings, which rendered him unable to distinguish between real life and fiction and that, acting out the behaviour of his anti-hero Northangerland, he had molested the boy or exposed himself to him. Barker's book shows that the assumed date of the boy's arrival is based on a local newspaper column which often got dates wrong or missed people out, and that there is much better evidence showing that he accompanied his family and was not left behind. It also gives a lot of evidence to support Branwell's assertion, not least of which is that Mrs Robinson sent servants to make financial payments to Branwell to keep him away from her - to buy him off basically. Barker's book also makes it clear that he didn't take heavily to the bottle until after he was sacked and his unrealistic hopes to marry Mrs Robinson were finally dashed, so he was not blurring reality with fantasy under the influence of drink and drugs (laudanum) when still in the Robinsons' employ.
Interestingly du Maurier does cast doubt on whether Branwell was a thwarted genius and decides that most of his work wasn't very good, portraying him not exactly as overindulged - in a family which lived on the meagre salary of Patrick - but more as the little boy who dominated his sisters, had a big personality and was expected to be an artistic or literary success when in fact he lacked the talent of his sisters. It is interesting that, unlike them, he was never sent away to school even for a short period. It becomes increasingly clear that he lacked not only their talent but also their application and effort, preferring to live off his father, run up debts which he expected Patrick or his friends to pay, and retreat from his unrealistic ideas of fame and fortune into an alcohol and laudanum haze.
One assertion of du Maurier's which appears to be unique to her is her idea that Branwell must have been epileptic. And there are other points where the book has to be treated with caution. As Barker makes clear, the sections where Branwell carouses with Irish labourers whom she calls "boaties" while he is working away as a railway clerk is fictional and seems to have originated with du Maurier - there were no Irish people living in the locality at that period. She also has him living at a pub which did not actually exist at the time. These and other mistakes render the whole book more of a fictional account of the life rather than one on which to trust, although the extracts from Branwell's juvenilia and later poems are of interest. Given these major reservations, I can only award the book an OK 2 stars.
In places it is quite obvious that the novelist has taken over from the biographer, with scenes and dialogue constructed from surmise or outright fictionalising. In others, as Barker's book makes clear, du Maurier, like most of the biographers who followed Elizabeth Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronte", takes its steer from that book on many aspects, although du Maurier doesn't quite turn the family's father, Patrick, into the monster portrayed by Gaskell.
Some of du Maurier's speculation reads oddly these days. Because it appears that the young son of his employer Mr Robinson remained behind with him while the rest of the family went to Scarborough and it is only after the son apparently arrived there that Mr Robinson wrote a letter sacking Branwell in very strong terms, she comes up with the theory that he must have tried to make paedophilic advances to the boy. This would be far more shocking than the reality - that Branwell had been either having an affair with his employer's wife or at least showing inappropriate attraction to her. du Maurier dismisses Branwell's own explanation to his family for why he has lost his job as tutor - an affair with Mrs Robinson - because she has a fixed idea that he was increasingly lost in an unreal melodramatic world based on his childhood writings, which rendered him unable to distinguish between real life and fiction and that, acting out the behaviour of his anti-hero Northangerland, he had molested the boy or exposed himself to him. Barker's book shows that the assumed date of the boy's arrival is based on a local newspaper column which often got dates wrong or missed people out, and that there is much better evidence showing that he accompanied his family and was not left behind. It also gives a lot of evidence to support Branwell's assertion, not least of which is that Mrs Robinson sent servants to make financial payments to Branwell to keep him away from her - to buy him off basically. Barker's book also makes it clear that he didn't take heavily to the bottle until after he was sacked and his unrealistic hopes to marry Mrs Robinson were finally dashed, so he was not blurring reality with fantasy under the influence of drink and drugs (laudanum) when still in the Robinsons' employ.
Interestingly du Maurier does cast doubt on whether Branwell was a thwarted genius and decides that most of his work wasn't very good, portraying him not exactly as overindulged - in a family which lived on the meagre salary of Patrick - but more as the little boy who dominated his sisters, had a big personality and was expected to be an artistic or literary success when in fact he lacked the talent of his sisters. It is interesting that, unlike them, he was never sent away to school even for a short period. It becomes increasingly clear that he lacked not only their talent but also their application and effort, preferring to live off his father, run up debts which he expected Patrick or his friends to pay, and retreat from his unrealistic ideas of fame and fortune into an alcohol and laudanum haze.
One assertion of du Maurier's which appears to be unique to her is her idea that Branwell must have been epileptic. And there are other points where the book has to be treated with caution. As Barker makes clear, the sections where Branwell carouses with Irish labourers whom she calls "boaties" while he is working away as a railway clerk is fictional and seems to have originated with du Maurier - there were no Irish people living in the locality at that period. She also has him living at a pub which did not actually exist at the time. These and other mistakes render the whole book more of a fictional account of the life rather than one on which to trust, although the extracts from Branwell's juvenilia and later poems are of interest. Given these major reservations, I can only award the book an OK 2 stars.
October 27, 2012
This was an interesting biography of Patrick Branwell Bronte. du Maurier did a good job with presenting her research circa 1960.
Many other biographies have been written since then but, this is a very informative introduction to a tortured and creative person. If Branwell had been able to get the help he needed, he would have been one of the brightest stars of the 19th century. Since it was the 19th century, the help he needed was not at hand.
Many other biographies have been written since then but, this is a very informative introduction to a tortured and creative person. If Branwell had been able to get the help he needed, he would have been one of the brightest stars of the 19th century. Since it was the 19th century, the help he needed was not at hand.
November 6, 2023
I really loved this book!!
November 1, 2014
Daphne, is there anything you cannot write?
Brilliant account of the wayward Bronte boy. This really did expand my knowledge of the Bronte's childhood, their relationships with one another and their creative output. Branwell certainly had an interesting life, but for me the most interesting thing was reading about his influence on Charlotte, Emily and Anne. I feel like I have a much deeper insight into their works. Highly recommended.
Brilliant account of the wayward Bronte boy. This really did expand my knowledge of the Bronte's childhood, their relationships with one another and their creative output. Branwell certainly had an interesting life, but for me the most interesting thing was reading about his influence on Charlotte, Emily and Anne. I feel like I have a much deeper insight into their works. Highly recommended.
May 5, 2010
Hm, this is a tough one to review.
On the one hand, du Maurier shows a marvelous understanding of Branwell and his imaginary "infernal world", and how living in his fantasy life affected his real life. Her storytelling ability is well used here, her writing is excellent, and her research shows, as the book is full of apt quotations from Branwell's own works (poetry and letters) as well as those of his sisters and friends.
On the other hand, she's just full of bizarre off-the-wall theories, from thinking that Branwell helped write Wuthering Heights to supposing that maybe he made sexual advances to his young pupil, Edmund Robinson, rather than to his mother Lydia, as usually supposed. She veers from saying that the Murrays in Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey couldn't possibly have been based on the Robinsons right into quoting a long passage from Agnes Grey, a description of Rosalie Murray, as a description of Lydia Robinson. Not too consistent there, Daphne.
I think I shall get Winifred Gerin's book, and I wonder if they'll make a good pair: I imagine Gerin will be more down to earth and less speculative, but du Maurier surely has the key to Branwell's character.
On the one hand, du Maurier shows a marvelous understanding of Branwell and his imaginary "infernal world", and how living in his fantasy life affected his real life. Her storytelling ability is well used here, her writing is excellent, and her research shows, as the book is full of apt quotations from Branwell's own works (poetry and letters) as well as those of his sisters and friends.
On the other hand, she's just full of bizarre off-the-wall theories, from thinking that Branwell helped write Wuthering Heights to supposing that maybe he made sexual advances to his young pupil, Edmund Robinson, rather than to his mother Lydia, as usually supposed. She veers from saying that the Murrays in Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey couldn't possibly have been based on the Robinsons right into quoting a long passage from Agnes Grey, a description of Rosalie Murray, as a description of Lydia Robinson. Not too consistent there, Daphne.
I think I shall get Winifred Gerin's book, and I wonder if they'll make a good pair: I imagine Gerin will be more down to earth and less speculative, but du Maurier surely has the key to Branwell's character.
November 19, 2014
Researching Branwell. Would modern studies reveal anything more specific about him? Daphne du Maurier wrote a very compelling book, but it does not hold up well. Full of her own opinions.
March 8, 2018
A marvelous portrait of a brilliant and precocious child who failed to thrive as an adult.
January 14, 2018
In her introduction to this biography of the ‘maligned, neglected and despised� Bronte brother, Daphne du Maurier concludes that the unhappiness of his adult life was caused by his inability to ‘distinguish truth from fiction, reality from fantasy�. In the last years of his life, it seems that Branwell (or P.B. Bronte, as he always signed his letters) concocted a romance between himself and his former employer’s wife; it was meant to explain his termination as a tutor to the Robinson family, and also served (as du Maurier pieces together) as an artful form of manipulation to extort money from friends. It was the final dismal chapter in an adult life that had been marked by one failure or disgrace after another. And yet, du Maurier argues, it could have been so different; like his family, she seems to think his creative output, his imagination and energy had marked him out for something better.
For years I’ve known of Branwell as the brother who got painted out of the Bronte family portrait; in truth, he painted himself out. I would have been really fascinated with this book when I was in my early 20s, and first exploring the Bronte background behind one of my all-time favourite books (Jane Eyre), but at this point in my life there isn’t much new here for me. The brilliant BBC programme ‘To Walk Invisible� from December 2016 did a splendid job of capturing the family dynamics and how Branwell fitted into the family; first as the leader of the remaining four Bronte children (the others being Charlotte, Emily and Anne), and then as the wearisome and problematic burden.
But if you do still feel the need to know more about Branwell, Du Maurier goes into great depth about the imaginative creation of Alexander Percy - and how he became a sort of alter ego for Branwell, and an outlet for many of his beliefs, doubts and certainly escapist fantasies. (One of the most interesting aspects of the book is her assertion that the Bronte children used their fantasy worlds to express their rebellions - for instance, towards their Christian faith.). If you have the patience to read through them, du Maurier includes many extracts of Alexander Percy’s exploits, but also of Branwell’s poetry and various of his letters. The poetry I most skimmed; I will admit; but the letters were fascinating. To see how Branwell alternates between obsequiousness and sweeping grandiosity and arrogance is not only interesting - but illuminating in terms of his character.
I suppose I should have pity for poor Branwell, on whose slim shoulders so many of the hopes and ambitions of the family rested; but I found him both annoying and contemptible. His self-pity and refusal to admit blame for his own failings were hard to stomach, and I could not love the bright, promising child in him - as du Maurier obviously could.
For years I’ve known of Branwell as the brother who got painted out of the Bronte family portrait; in truth, he painted himself out. I would have been really fascinated with this book when I was in my early 20s, and first exploring the Bronte background behind one of my all-time favourite books (Jane Eyre), but at this point in my life there isn’t much new here for me. The brilliant BBC programme ‘To Walk Invisible� from December 2016 did a splendid job of capturing the family dynamics and how Branwell fitted into the family; first as the leader of the remaining four Bronte children (the others being Charlotte, Emily and Anne), and then as the wearisome and problematic burden.
But if you do still feel the need to know more about Branwell, Du Maurier goes into great depth about the imaginative creation of Alexander Percy - and how he became a sort of alter ego for Branwell, and an outlet for many of his beliefs, doubts and certainly escapist fantasies. (One of the most interesting aspects of the book is her assertion that the Bronte children used their fantasy worlds to express their rebellions - for instance, towards their Christian faith.). If you have the patience to read through them, du Maurier includes many extracts of Alexander Percy’s exploits, but also of Branwell’s poetry and various of his letters. The poetry I most skimmed; I will admit; but the letters were fascinating. To see how Branwell alternates between obsequiousness and sweeping grandiosity and arrogance is not only interesting - but illuminating in terms of his character.
I suppose I should have pity for poor Branwell, on whose slim shoulders so many of the hopes and ambitions of the family rested; but I found him both annoying and contemptible. His self-pity and refusal to admit blame for his own failings were hard to stomach, and I could not love the bright, promising child in him - as du Maurier obviously could.
December 22, 2024
Daphne du Maurier uses all her biographer’s skill, and she certainly does have skill, on the mysterious figure of Branwell Brontë, and it is hard not to be intensely moved by Branwell’s final retreat into laudanum, alcohol, and death. Branwell Brontë’s life seemed so promising especially to his three adoring sisters, but things didn't work that way.
Branwell was the only son in a family filled with sisters, sisters that adored him. At one point during his childhood he attempted to go to school, but it didn't last, he was too nervous around the other children, I know the feeling. So his father taught him at home. I wish someone would have taught me at home, I would have graduated top of my class, I would have been homecoming queen, I would have been voted most likely to succeed, well enough of that. He was rigorously tutored at home by his father, and earned praise for his poetry and translations from the classics. His family was proud at him and it looked like everything was going his way. It doesn't.
Daphne du Maurier often spoke of her love for the works of the Brontë's, she began reading their novels when she was only twelve and read them over again and again. The sister's works influence some of du Maurier's works like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Chapter one of The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë begins:
He died on Sunday morning, the 24th of September, 1848. He was thirty-one years old. He died in the room which he had shared with his father for so long, and in which, as a little boy, he had awakened to find the moon shining through the curtainless windows and his father upon his knees, praying.
The room, for too many months now, had been part refuge and part prison-cell. It had been refuge from the accusing or indifferent eyes of his sisters, refuge from the averted gaze of his father � Eternal reproach, eternal accusation. But when he was alone again, the family downstairs and about their business, only the familiar sounds of day-by-day penetrating his solitude � the cry of a child in the road, the chiming of the church clock, the opening and closing of the garden gate as someone called upon parish concerns � then the room turned to the cold walls of a dungeon, or, worse, oppressed him with the stifling weight of a tomb beneath whose heavy stone the dead-alive know perpetual suffocation.
Well that's sad. But it gets worse:
"I know only that it is time for me to be something when I am nothing. That my father cannot have long to live, and that when he dies my evening, which is already twilight, will become night. That I shall then have a constitution still so strong that it will keep me years in torture and despair when I should every hour pray that I might die." - from a letter to a friend. We're told that his friend had troubles of his own, and the very story of it had become worn from too many repetitions of it. No one cared, no one was interested. Poor Branwell, there is this when he is just a little boy:
The boy, born on June 26th, 1817, in Thornton, on the outskirts of Bradford, where his father was curate, quickly forgot his birthplace. But the first year at Haworth, where his parents moved when he was three, must have proved disturbing. After months of agony the invalid upstairs, whom the younger ones had barely seen during her long illness, was finally laid to rest. Mama had gone to Jesus.
My grandmother died when she was 37 years old from breast cancer. She was dead a long, long time before I entered the picture, so I never knew her. She died in 1924 so there are only a few photos of her. I asked my dad once if he remembered her, he was seven when she died, and he said, yes, he did remember her, but only in bed, he never saw her she wasn't laying in bed. Anyway, Branwell lost his mother even younger than my dad lost his. But we are told there was always Maria, the eldest sister who had great patience with her brother and promised to take care of him. So Maria became the substitute for Mama. And then Maria gets sick and before long Maria goes to join Mama with Jesus. Poor Branwell. And then Elizabeth came home from school sick. Again, he must stay quiet, he can't bother her, and again she goes to be with Jesus. This isn't going well for the family.
Now that everyone stopped dying for awhile, it is time for Branwell to attend school, or is it?
Mr. Bronte, believing his son to be a prodigy, pressed him to Latin and Greek, on top of the rest of his studies. Here was a boy, he told himself, who was in a fair way to becoming a first-rate classical scholar, and who, with his extraordinary capacity for absorbing knowledge, might one day shine above his contemporaries at Oxford or Cambridge.
There was one danger. His son might prove too clever. So brilliant, in fact, that the illness known at that time as "brain-fever" might suddenly attack him. The boy was highly-strung and very excitable. When too enthusiastic he seemed to reach a pitch of delight that was near to hysteria, and then as suddenly he would collapse, for no rhyme or reason, and there would be shivers and tears.
If the collapsing for no reason with shivers and tears is epilepsy, then I am brilliant, high strung and very excitable. Brilliant anyway. When I have seizures though there is no pitch of delight, at least if there is I'm not the one having it. Here is more about that:
There is also delirium tremens brought on sometimes by intoxication � the patient thinks himself haunted by demons, sees luminous substances in his imagination, has frequent trembling of the limbs, if intoxication be left off this madness will in general diminish.
It is doubtful whether Branwell ever suffered from delirium tremens. Dr. Wheelhouse may have called it this, but the trouble is just as likely to have been the fits to which Branwell was subject.
No one has ever told me I have delirium tremens before, and I don't feel haunted by demons, I don't seem to be any more mad then the rest of my family, so I'm starting to doubt the Branwell had epilepsy theory. And how does all this end for Branwell?
It was close on nine o'clock. Instead of prayer or challenge he said to John, "In all my past life I have done nothing either great or good." Then his face changed, and a convulsion seized him for the last time. His sisters came back into the room, and his father too, and when he saw his father he stumbled to his feet and died.
That was depressing. On to the next book, hopefully it will be happier.
Branwell was the only son in a family filled with sisters, sisters that adored him. At one point during his childhood he attempted to go to school, but it didn't last, he was too nervous around the other children, I know the feeling. So his father taught him at home. I wish someone would have taught me at home, I would have graduated top of my class, I would have been homecoming queen, I would have been voted most likely to succeed, well enough of that. He was rigorously tutored at home by his father, and earned praise for his poetry and translations from the classics. His family was proud at him and it looked like everything was going his way. It doesn't.
Daphne du Maurier often spoke of her love for the works of the Brontë's, she began reading their novels when she was only twelve and read them over again and again. The sister's works influence some of du Maurier's works like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Chapter one of The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë begins:
He died on Sunday morning, the 24th of September, 1848. He was thirty-one years old. He died in the room which he had shared with his father for so long, and in which, as a little boy, he had awakened to find the moon shining through the curtainless windows and his father upon his knees, praying.
The room, for too many months now, had been part refuge and part prison-cell. It had been refuge from the accusing or indifferent eyes of his sisters, refuge from the averted gaze of his father � Eternal reproach, eternal accusation. But when he was alone again, the family downstairs and about their business, only the familiar sounds of day-by-day penetrating his solitude � the cry of a child in the road, the chiming of the church clock, the opening and closing of the garden gate as someone called upon parish concerns � then the room turned to the cold walls of a dungeon, or, worse, oppressed him with the stifling weight of a tomb beneath whose heavy stone the dead-alive know perpetual suffocation.
Well that's sad. But it gets worse:
"I know only that it is time for me to be something when I am nothing. That my father cannot have long to live, and that when he dies my evening, which is already twilight, will become night. That I shall then have a constitution still so strong that it will keep me years in torture and despair when I should every hour pray that I might die." - from a letter to a friend. We're told that his friend had troubles of his own, and the very story of it had become worn from too many repetitions of it. No one cared, no one was interested. Poor Branwell, there is this when he is just a little boy:
The boy, born on June 26th, 1817, in Thornton, on the outskirts of Bradford, where his father was curate, quickly forgot his birthplace. But the first year at Haworth, where his parents moved when he was three, must have proved disturbing. After months of agony the invalid upstairs, whom the younger ones had barely seen during her long illness, was finally laid to rest. Mama had gone to Jesus.
My grandmother died when she was 37 years old from breast cancer. She was dead a long, long time before I entered the picture, so I never knew her. She died in 1924 so there are only a few photos of her. I asked my dad once if he remembered her, he was seven when she died, and he said, yes, he did remember her, but only in bed, he never saw her she wasn't laying in bed. Anyway, Branwell lost his mother even younger than my dad lost his. But we are told there was always Maria, the eldest sister who had great patience with her brother and promised to take care of him. So Maria became the substitute for Mama. And then Maria gets sick and before long Maria goes to join Mama with Jesus. Poor Branwell. And then Elizabeth came home from school sick. Again, he must stay quiet, he can't bother her, and again she goes to be with Jesus. This isn't going well for the family.
Now that everyone stopped dying for awhile, it is time for Branwell to attend school, or is it?
Mr. Bronte, believing his son to be a prodigy, pressed him to Latin and Greek, on top of the rest of his studies. Here was a boy, he told himself, who was in a fair way to becoming a first-rate classical scholar, and who, with his extraordinary capacity for absorbing knowledge, might one day shine above his contemporaries at Oxford or Cambridge.
There was one danger. His son might prove too clever. So brilliant, in fact, that the illness known at that time as "brain-fever" might suddenly attack him. The boy was highly-strung and very excitable. When too enthusiastic he seemed to reach a pitch of delight that was near to hysteria, and then as suddenly he would collapse, for no rhyme or reason, and there would be shivers and tears.
If the collapsing for no reason with shivers and tears is epilepsy, then I am brilliant, high strung and very excitable. Brilliant anyway. When I have seizures though there is no pitch of delight, at least if there is I'm not the one having it. Here is more about that:
There is also delirium tremens brought on sometimes by intoxication � the patient thinks himself haunted by demons, sees luminous substances in his imagination, has frequent trembling of the limbs, if intoxication be left off this madness will in general diminish.
It is doubtful whether Branwell ever suffered from delirium tremens. Dr. Wheelhouse may have called it this, but the trouble is just as likely to have been the fits to which Branwell was subject.
No one has ever told me I have delirium tremens before, and I don't feel haunted by demons, I don't seem to be any more mad then the rest of my family, so I'm starting to doubt the Branwell had epilepsy theory. And how does all this end for Branwell?
It was close on nine o'clock. Instead of prayer or challenge he said to John, "In all my past life I have done nothing either great or good." Then his face changed, and a convulsion seized him for the last time. His sisters came back into the room, and his father too, and when he saw his father he stumbled to his feet and died.
That was depressing. On to the next book, hopefully it will be happier.
October 25, 2016
Maybe 4.5 stars really. I really enjoyed this, but have not given it an outright 5 because it came across as I half expected it would as a strange cross between fiction and fact. This is not a criticism of Daphne du Maurier's writing but more due to the lack of definitive facts about the subject. This has led the author to suggest a lot of 'maybes', especially when discussing Branwell's motivations.
Although du Maurier says that she does not think her subject was quite as bad as he has been made out to be (although she quotes many previous authors who also appear to think the same, so where does this reputation come from?), she only mentions in passing his drunken behaviour and mostly accuses him of making things up, and being lazy.
Admittedly he wasn't very good at holding down a job, but he just wanted to be a famous writer. It was a shame that no-one told him he wasn't good enough for this, so he carried on, not really caring if the few paying jobs he did manage to get didn't last very long, because he still believed in his own abilities. His friends and family never told him that he wasn't a great writer, and the many examples of his writing in this book prove that he wasn't. The ideas behind his poems and prose were the most fascinating thing to me, but the execution of them let him down. At first I was even tempted to see if any of his tales of Angria were available to read, but after a while I thought 'Maybe not'.
So, did I feel sorry for him? A bit. It was a tough old life for an intellectual who wasn't part of the establishment, and when DdM says she thinks he did know about his sisters' eventual success during the last year of his life, well this could have only added to his downward spiral to oblivion. He was certainly no hero, literary or otherwise, but still a quite fascinating part of the literary history of the world - even if not for the reasons he would have wanted.
Although du Maurier says that she does not think her subject was quite as bad as he has been made out to be (although she quotes many previous authors who also appear to think the same, so where does this reputation come from?), she only mentions in passing his drunken behaviour and mostly accuses him of making things up, and being lazy.
Admittedly he wasn't very good at holding down a job, but he just wanted to be a famous writer. It was a shame that no-one told him he wasn't good enough for this, so he carried on, not really caring if the few paying jobs he did manage to get didn't last very long, because he still believed in his own abilities. His friends and family never told him that he wasn't a great writer, and the many examples of his writing in this book prove that he wasn't. The ideas behind his poems and prose were the most fascinating thing to me, but the execution of them let him down. At first I was even tempted to see if any of his tales of Angria were available to read, but after a while I thought 'Maybe not'.
So, did I feel sorry for him? A bit. It was a tough old life for an intellectual who wasn't part of the establishment, and when DdM says she thinks he did know about his sisters' eventual success during the last year of his life, well this could have only added to his downward spiral to oblivion. He was certainly no hero, literary or otherwise, but still a quite fascinating part of the literary history of the world - even if not for the reasons he would have wanted.
January 8, 2018
This was a weird one. It seemed to me on the border between between novel and biography, not quite either one.
That its author also wrote such novels as My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca gives it authority: clearly, du Maurier was a woman who had thought long and deeply about the nature of obsession, deception and mental illness -- which gave her a peculiar insight into the mind of Branwell Bronte, regardless of whether she had all her facts straight, or whether some of them have since been disproved by more recent research.
What I particularly liked was how much she discusses, and quotes from, the juvenilia, and situates it in the context of the siblings' lives. As a novelist herself, she is sensitive as no other biographer could be to the ways -- sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant -- that reality and fantasy, writing and life, can intersect, overlap and influence each other.
That its author also wrote such novels as My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca gives it authority: clearly, du Maurier was a woman who had thought long and deeply about the nature of obsession, deception and mental illness -- which gave her a peculiar insight into the mind of Branwell Bronte, regardless of whether she had all her facts straight, or whether some of them have since been disproved by more recent research.
What I particularly liked was how much she discusses, and quotes from, the juvenilia, and situates it in the context of the siblings' lives. As a novelist herself, she is sensitive as no other biographer could be to the ways -- sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant -- that reality and fantasy, writing and life, can intersect, overlap and influence each other.
October 29, 2017
This was an interesting look at the Bronte sisters' infamous brother, Branwell. Du Maurier, while not entirely free of the utter rubbish put about by Elizabeth Gaskell in her 'The Life of Charlotte Bronte' nevertheless manages to present a moderate biographical account free from inclination towards melodramatics. Most biography is at least partially biased by the author because in order for the author to have written a book about someone's life, they have to find that person interesting. It would be nigh on impossible to do this without forming an opinion on your subject. While I found du Maurier fell into some of the more common traps - of minimising Rev Patrick Bronte as an over religious and rather ineffectual old man and father, of Anne being less talented than her sisters and of Emily being a self contained misanthrope, and we know that at least two of those misconceptions are utterly false - she does present a compelling case for Branwell's nature and personality, together with educated guesses as to how he came to the pass he did.
I found myself at turns sympathising with Branwell, understanding his behaviour while not condoning it and occasionally despising his weakness. So much was expected of him that any failure was anathema and prostrating. He had a great deal of talent in many areas and was made much of for being a prodigy as a child, and between this indulgence and confinement for health reasons, was never taught that all the genius in the world is no substitute for hard work and the willingness to apply effort. Far better for him if things had not come so easily, if his family had not called him a prodigy and made him work for the praise and recognition he craved, he would have got a lot further.
I do agree with du Maurier and other Bronte Scholars that he suffered from epilepsy. In fact if you look at Charlotte and her predisposition to both severe migraines and fantasy being inseparable from reality, you might be forgiven for thinking she also was a sufferer of a particular type of epilepsy. There are many forms of epilepsy that do not involve full complex seizures. To me - and admittedly as a sufferer myself - the symptoms added together sound very like temporal lobe epilepsy. TLE goes hand in hand with severe migraines. One of its main symptoms is that it does not let you sleep. Sufferers are constantly awakened by micro seizures through out the night so they always wake with a feeling of disturbed rest. Another major symptom is that it alters the sufferer's ability to perceive reality - think of Lewis Carroll or Van Gogh (who probably wasn't schizophrenic but most likely suffered TLE). It causes chronic headaches and often synesthesia. Even today, sufferers are misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia rather than a form of epilepsy. Weirdly, it does seem to go hand in hand with a huge creative desire and an ability to make such creations quite extraordinary. Sudden swooping lows of depression and highs of vitality are another side effect. We'll never really know if any of the people I have just mentioned suffered TLE but it is interesting, to me at least, how many points of coincidence there are.
Whatever Branwell suffered from health wise - and if it was a form of epilepsy then Patrick Bronte was probably right to keep it quiet (bear in mind that well up into the 1950s and 60s in UK, epileptics were often shut quietly away by their families who didn't know what to do with them. This included the Windsors. In 19th C epilepsy was considered akin to 'madness' and could get you put for life in an asylum.) - while it may have started him off taking small does of laudanum, and alcohol too, it was Branwell's own weakness of character that saw him fail as hard as he did. That said, a little more understanding rather than censure and disapproval, and a bit more medical intervention might have seen him turn out differently.
An interesting point du Maurier made with regard to the poor infamous Mrs Lydia Robinson, was that the 'affaire' most likely never happened at all. It seems as if, like Charlotte with Monsieur Constantine Heger, Branwell construed the entire thing through a few glances and smiles, then unable to detach fantasy from reality, spread his version of events for which there was not a scrap of evidence. There is in fact a fair amount of evidence that it never happened. Obviously a talented young an taken in of by a scheming, mature woman of social advantage and station, falling in love and destroying himself over it is a far more exciting story - replete with the Byronic flourishes of Emily or Charlotte themselves - and therefore more enticing for the Bronte scholar and more fitting for the Bronte who in the end did so little with his gifts. But the fact of the matter is that it most likely only took place in Branwell's head.
This book is well worth a read for anyone interested in that famous literary family, and stands on its own merit as a faithful attempt at a portrait over a young man we know comparatively little about. My main criticism is that like so many of du Maurier's books, it doesn't end, it just stops, leaving the reader feeling somewhat cheated.
I found myself at turns sympathising with Branwell, understanding his behaviour while not condoning it and occasionally despising his weakness. So much was expected of him that any failure was anathema and prostrating. He had a great deal of talent in many areas and was made much of for being a prodigy as a child, and between this indulgence and confinement for health reasons, was never taught that all the genius in the world is no substitute for hard work and the willingness to apply effort. Far better for him if things had not come so easily, if his family had not called him a prodigy and made him work for the praise and recognition he craved, he would have got a lot further.
I do agree with du Maurier and other Bronte Scholars that he suffered from epilepsy. In fact if you look at Charlotte and her predisposition to both severe migraines and fantasy being inseparable from reality, you might be forgiven for thinking she also was a sufferer of a particular type of epilepsy. There are many forms of epilepsy that do not involve full complex seizures. To me - and admittedly as a sufferer myself - the symptoms added together sound very like temporal lobe epilepsy. TLE goes hand in hand with severe migraines. One of its main symptoms is that it does not let you sleep. Sufferers are constantly awakened by micro seizures through out the night so they always wake with a feeling of disturbed rest. Another major symptom is that it alters the sufferer's ability to perceive reality - think of Lewis Carroll or Van Gogh (who probably wasn't schizophrenic but most likely suffered TLE). It causes chronic headaches and often synesthesia. Even today, sufferers are misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia rather than a form of epilepsy. Weirdly, it does seem to go hand in hand with a huge creative desire and an ability to make such creations quite extraordinary. Sudden swooping lows of depression and highs of vitality are another side effect. We'll never really know if any of the people I have just mentioned suffered TLE but it is interesting, to me at least, how many points of coincidence there are.
Whatever Branwell suffered from health wise - and if it was a form of epilepsy then Patrick Bronte was probably right to keep it quiet (bear in mind that well up into the 1950s and 60s in UK, epileptics were often shut quietly away by their families who didn't know what to do with them. This included the Windsors. In 19th C epilepsy was considered akin to 'madness' and could get you put for life in an asylum.) - while it may have started him off taking small does of laudanum, and alcohol too, it was Branwell's own weakness of character that saw him fail as hard as he did. That said, a little more understanding rather than censure and disapproval, and a bit more medical intervention might have seen him turn out differently.
An interesting point du Maurier made with regard to the poor infamous Mrs Lydia Robinson, was that the 'affaire' most likely never happened at all. It seems as if, like Charlotte with Monsieur Constantine Heger, Branwell construed the entire thing through a few glances and smiles, then unable to detach fantasy from reality, spread his version of events for which there was not a scrap of evidence. There is in fact a fair amount of evidence that it never happened. Obviously a talented young an taken in of by a scheming, mature woman of social advantage and station, falling in love and destroying himself over it is a far more exciting story - replete with the Byronic flourishes of Emily or Charlotte themselves - and therefore more enticing for the Bronte scholar and more fitting for the Bronte who in the end did so little with his gifts. But the fact of the matter is that it most likely only took place in Branwell's head.
This book is well worth a read for anyone interested in that famous literary family, and stands on its own merit as a faithful attempt at a portrait over a young man we know comparatively little about. My main criticism is that like so many of du Maurier's books, it doesn't end, it just stops, leaving the reader feeling somewhat cheated.
August 23, 2022
There is something that has always fascinated me about the Brontë family. Perhaps it’s the fact that the children grew up in a small parsonage on the moors, with nothing but themselves and their imaginary creations to keep them company. Or maybe it’s the fact that three of the daughters all published novels which are now considered to be some of the most eminent works of literature from the 19th century. Branwell Brontë, however, never published anything.
This biography follows Branwell’s life, first as a child brimming with potential and boundless imagination, then as an adult, when he falls from the ladder of achievement and slips into addiction and mental illness. It explores his friendships and relationships, his art, and his dreams.
While reading this, I actually had to take a break from it. Not because it was poorly written or boring, but because it was so emotionally heavy. Daphne du Maurier writes Branwell’s emotions in a way that was so tangible, and even relatable, for me.
As a whole, this book is an exploration into the events that so fatefully shaped Branwell’s character, one who was so consumed with leaving a legacy and creating worthwhile art; one who only wanted to be remembered and was only forgotten. Some consider his story a failure, but it is really just a tragedy.
CONTENT WARNINGS:
(Scale of 0-5)
Language: 0
Kissing/Sexual content: 0 - Mentions of affairs; nothing explicit.
Violence: 0
Alcohol/Addictive Substances: 2 - Mentions of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Trigger Warnings: alcoholism, depression, drug addiction, mental illness, death of family members, death of friends.
This biography follows Branwell’s life, first as a child brimming with potential and boundless imagination, then as an adult, when he falls from the ladder of achievement and slips into addiction and mental illness. It explores his friendships and relationships, his art, and his dreams.
While reading this, I actually had to take a break from it. Not because it was poorly written or boring, but because it was so emotionally heavy. Daphne du Maurier writes Branwell’s emotions in a way that was so tangible, and even relatable, for me.
As a whole, this book is an exploration into the events that so fatefully shaped Branwell’s character, one who was so consumed with leaving a legacy and creating worthwhile art; one who only wanted to be remembered and was only forgotten. Some consider his story a failure, but it is really just a tragedy.
CONTENT WARNINGS:
(Scale of 0-5)
Language: 0
Kissing/Sexual content: 0 - Mentions of affairs; nothing explicit.
Violence: 0
Alcohol/Addictive Substances: 2 - Mentions of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Trigger Warnings: alcoholism, depression, drug addiction, mental illness, death of family members, death of friends.
February 2, 2008
This is a hauntingly beautiful story of Branwell Bronte, the magnificently talented brother of the Bronte sisters. Ironically though, while all of them, Charlotte, Emily and Anne got their share of fame, Branwell alone perished in anonymity and died a lonely death at the shockingly young age of 31.
The most interesting part of the book is that it raises speculations on whether Charlotte's Bronte's Wuthering Heights was actually Branwell's brain child.
In any case, the story is a riveting read, a poignant tale of what can become of unfulfilled ambitions and a genius mind lost to the ruins of fate and time.
Here’s the more detailed review from my blog.
Who really wrote Wuthering Heights?
The popular belief of course is that Emily Bronte wrote this 19th century classic but if one scratches the surface, one will discover there’s an altogether different story here.
While the three Bronte sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlott met with great literary success with Wuthering Heigths, Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre, biographers suggest that it was actually their genius brother Branwell Bronte who was behind it all.
So why did he alone perish in anonymity? It’s a sad story of a man whose fertile mind and high flights of fancy were never allowed to take wings in the real world. As a child, Branwell was the leader among his sisters. If he cried, they cried. He laughed, they laughed. They followed him everywhere; delighted by the fantastical characters he created and awed by his brilliance. Branwell’s ‘infernal� world was full of kings, queens, ghosts and worriers. He liked blood and gore in his stories and almost convinced himself and his sisters that such a world actually existed.
Many believe that Heathcliff was his own creation, which Emily developed further. One can’t deny that Emily wrote Wuthering Heigths but the ideas, characters and inspiration behind the story was indeed Branwell’s.
Till the age of 19, hopes were still riding very high on this whiz kid. Everyone knew that great things awaited him and Branwell was almost certain to make a great name for himself. This is one of the reasons why their aunt didn’t deem it necessary to leave any money for him in her death will. So confident was she of her nephew’s prospects that she divided her money among the three girls instead. Ironically, he needed the money most at a later stage.
Branwell was rejected at a premium painting school that came as a shock. After that, there were a series of disappointments. Wordsworth to whom he sent a selection of his poems for his opinion gave him no reply. Several publishers rejected his work and slowly disappointment started to set in. He was 23 and nothing was working for him still. Not that the young man was not trying but there was no reassurance that was coming forth from the literary world.
In his late twenties, a slow resignation started to creep into his poems. A particularly poignant line was
‘I lost the race I never ran�
The sisters were tiring of him, though they did bail him out at several points. They were sympathetic but couldn’t understand why he was living the life of a wastrel.
Charlott, who published Jane Eyre under a pseudonym, met with great success. Emily’s Wuthering Heights got some critical acclaim but overall, it was considered a far-fetched, weird sort of story when it was first published. Later of course, it won its rightful place in literary history.
The sisters preferred not to tell their brother about the success of Jane Eyre. As Charlotte said later after his death, “We could not tell him of our efforts for fear of causing him too deep a pang of remorse for his own time misspent and talents misapplied. Now he will never knew…�
But the truth was different. Branwell knew about these novels. How could he not? Especially when most of it consisted of his own thoughts and ideas?
He too preferred to stay quiet, not letting them draw any happiness from the fact that he already knew it.
At 31, he was still languishing after the failures of a couple of jobs.
He said in one of his letters, “I know I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories, but the failure of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. I simply degraded me in my own eyes and broke my heart,� --- source Daphine du Mauriers� biography on Branwell.
A few days later, he died suddenly.
Many feel Branwell’s trouble started when he couldn’t differentiate between childhood fantasy and adulthood but personally I think fate too acted brutally towards this affectionate, sensitive and brilliant man.
-Sandhya Iyer
The most interesting part of the book is that it raises speculations on whether Charlotte's Bronte's Wuthering Heights was actually Branwell's brain child.
In any case, the story is a riveting read, a poignant tale of what can become of unfulfilled ambitions and a genius mind lost to the ruins of fate and time.
Here’s the more detailed review from my blog.
Who really wrote Wuthering Heights?
The popular belief of course is that Emily Bronte wrote this 19th century classic but if one scratches the surface, one will discover there’s an altogether different story here.
While the three Bronte sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlott met with great literary success with Wuthering Heigths, Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre, biographers suggest that it was actually their genius brother Branwell Bronte who was behind it all.
So why did he alone perish in anonymity? It’s a sad story of a man whose fertile mind and high flights of fancy were never allowed to take wings in the real world. As a child, Branwell was the leader among his sisters. If he cried, they cried. He laughed, they laughed. They followed him everywhere; delighted by the fantastical characters he created and awed by his brilliance. Branwell’s ‘infernal� world was full of kings, queens, ghosts and worriers. He liked blood and gore in his stories and almost convinced himself and his sisters that such a world actually existed.
Many believe that Heathcliff was his own creation, which Emily developed further. One can’t deny that Emily wrote Wuthering Heigths but the ideas, characters and inspiration behind the story was indeed Branwell’s.
Till the age of 19, hopes were still riding very high on this whiz kid. Everyone knew that great things awaited him and Branwell was almost certain to make a great name for himself. This is one of the reasons why their aunt didn’t deem it necessary to leave any money for him in her death will. So confident was she of her nephew’s prospects that she divided her money among the three girls instead. Ironically, he needed the money most at a later stage.
Branwell was rejected at a premium painting school that came as a shock. After that, there were a series of disappointments. Wordsworth to whom he sent a selection of his poems for his opinion gave him no reply. Several publishers rejected his work and slowly disappointment started to set in. He was 23 and nothing was working for him still. Not that the young man was not trying but there was no reassurance that was coming forth from the literary world.
In his late twenties, a slow resignation started to creep into his poems. A particularly poignant line was
‘I lost the race I never ran�
The sisters were tiring of him, though they did bail him out at several points. They were sympathetic but couldn’t understand why he was living the life of a wastrel.
Charlott, who published Jane Eyre under a pseudonym, met with great success. Emily’s Wuthering Heights got some critical acclaim but overall, it was considered a far-fetched, weird sort of story when it was first published. Later of course, it won its rightful place in literary history.
The sisters preferred not to tell their brother about the success of Jane Eyre. As Charlotte said later after his death, “We could not tell him of our efforts for fear of causing him too deep a pang of remorse for his own time misspent and talents misapplied. Now he will never knew…�
But the truth was different. Branwell knew about these novels. How could he not? Especially when most of it consisted of his own thoughts and ideas?
He too preferred to stay quiet, not letting them draw any happiness from the fact that he already knew it.
At 31, he was still languishing after the failures of a couple of jobs.
He said in one of his letters, “I know I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories, but the failure of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. I simply degraded me in my own eyes and broke my heart,� --- source Daphine du Mauriers� biography on Branwell.
A few days later, he died suddenly.
Many feel Branwell’s trouble started when he couldn’t differentiate between childhood fantasy and adulthood but personally I think fate too acted brutally towards this affectionate, sensitive and brilliant man.
-Sandhya Iyer
March 9, 2017
I should say 2.5 stars - between "it was ok" and "I liked it" - it was ok and I liked it because it was written by du Maurier, but I don't like Branwell Brontë
July 29, 2018
This was a lovely biography dedicated to Branwell, the neglected sibling when it comes to non-fiction work. I will have a full review of this on my , and it goes live on Wednesday, so definitely give it a follow if you're interested in reading more.
My only qualm with this was the writing style. At times, it felt like it was a story rather than non-fiction. If you weren't that familiar with Branwell's life, or the life of the family, in all honesty, then you may question what du Maurier wrote quite a lot. Although, as someone who is aware of their lives, I quite like the style du Maurier adopted. It was a little bit of a weird situation, and I think whether you like it or not depends entirely on what you like your non-fiction to be like.
Another issue that annoyed me was du Maurier unnecessary and unwarranted comment on Anne's literary merit. Randomly, she suggested that Anne had 'less talent' than her siblings. That's not true, and it's a stupid comparison to make. Anne wrote realistically, whereas Emily, Charlotte and Branwell wrote, more often than not, romantically. It was just a stupid, unnecessary comment that furthers the notion that Anne is the forgotten and less talented sibling.
Other than that, a delightful read on Branwell. The narrative being solely dedicated to him allowed me to reflect on my feelings towards him, whilst being introduced to a lot of new writing from him. I would definitely recommend!
My only qualm with this was the writing style. At times, it felt like it was a story rather than non-fiction. If you weren't that familiar with Branwell's life, or the life of the family, in all honesty, then you may question what du Maurier wrote quite a lot. Although, as someone who is aware of their lives, I quite like the style du Maurier adopted. It was a little bit of a weird situation, and I think whether you like it or not depends entirely on what you like your non-fiction to be like.
Another issue that annoyed me was du Maurier unnecessary and unwarranted comment on Anne's literary merit. Randomly, she suggested that Anne had 'less talent' than her siblings. That's not true, and it's a stupid comparison to make. Anne wrote realistically, whereas Emily, Charlotte and Branwell wrote, more often than not, romantically. It was just a stupid, unnecessary comment that furthers the notion that Anne is the forgotten and less talented sibling.
Other than that, a delightful read on Branwell. The narrative being solely dedicated to him allowed me to reflect on my feelings towards him, whilst being introduced to a lot of new writing from him. I would definitely recommend!
August 23, 2021
This speculative biography gets a bad wrap from many corners of the Brontë cult, but I reckon it was way ahead of its time.
Daphne du Maurier is guilty only of having a writer's fascination with her subject, something I also admit to. As an aspiring young wordsmith, the tale of Branwell Brontë's descent into despair and ignominy always loomed as more than cautionary; it was primal. I read this book at the time and having just re-read it, I am amazed at what my emergent mind failed to see.
There is nothing ostensibly wrong with any attempt to snatch a literary hopeful from the jaws of defeat through putting their story into a coherent context; and du Maurier does not do with this book what she has been accused of over its sixty-year lifespan: to posit Branwell as such a genius that he wrote his sisters' work. That judgement shows just where her critics stopped reading.
With a newshound's passion, du Maurier collects the disparate strands of Branwell's life and various accounts of his mixed fortunes, and contributes to laying much of the groundwork for later studies.
It's also a fascinating read: judicious and succinct, with an experienced storyteller's eye for filling gaps in the story. It is, after all, titled in a manner that avoids fact in favour of infernal fantasy, not posited as a definitive biography.
To enjoy it, a reader must play along, even a little.
Daphne du Maurier is guilty only of having a writer's fascination with her subject, something I also admit to. As an aspiring young wordsmith, the tale of Branwell Brontë's descent into despair and ignominy always loomed as more than cautionary; it was primal. I read this book at the time and having just re-read it, I am amazed at what my emergent mind failed to see.
There is nothing ostensibly wrong with any attempt to snatch a literary hopeful from the jaws of defeat through putting their story into a coherent context; and du Maurier does not do with this book what she has been accused of over its sixty-year lifespan: to posit Branwell as such a genius that he wrote his sisters' work. That judgement shows just where her critics stopped reading.
With a newshound's passion, du Maurier collects the disparate strands of Branwell's life and various accounts of his mixed fortunes, and contributes to laying much of the groundwork for later studies.
It's also a fascinating read: judicious and succinct, with an experienced storyteller's eye for filling gaps in the story. It is, after all, titled in a manner that avoids fact in favour of infernal fantasy, not posited as a definitive biography.
To enjoy it, a reader must play along, even a little.
November 17, 2014
Das Geschwister-Thema ist für Daphne du Maurier von besonderer Bedeutung (siehe THE PARASITES), so dass es nicht allzu sehr verwundert, dass sie sich - meines Wissens als eine der ersten Biografen - Branwells Leben monografisch annimmt.
Doch ist die Gattungsbezeichnung "Lebensroman" ernst zu nehmen und wenig beleuchtet du Maurier die sozialen Hintergründe und die Ursachen der hohen Sterberate bei Kindern.
Mit heutigen biografischen Standards kann das Buch nicht konkurrieren, und zumindest in der deutschen Übersetzung klingt die Sprache sehr umständlich.
Doch ist die Gattungsbezeichnung "Lebensroman" ernst zu nehmen und wenig beleuchtet du Maurier die sozialen Hintergründe und die Ursachen der hohen Sterberate bei Kindern.
Mit heutigen biografischen Standards kann das Buch nicht konkurrieren, und zumindest in der deutschen Übersetzung klingt die Sprache sehr umständlich.
July 13, 2016
When my copy of Daphne du Maurier’s The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte arrived, I was pleased to note that it had originally been purchased from the Howarth Bronte shop and still bore a sticker proclaiming this in its bottom right hand corner. Of the du Mauriers which I had planned to read during my du Maurier December project, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte was one of those which I was most intrigued by. Before beginning to read, I knew a little about Branwell Bronte, but only in the context of his sisters. I was therefore so interested to learn what he was like as an entirely separate being.
In her introduction, du Maurier sets out her reasons for producing a biography of a figure who was largely overshadowed by the fame of his three surviving sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne: ‘One day the definitive biography of this tragic young man will be published. Meanwhile, many years of interest in the subject, and much reading, have prompted the present writer to attempt a study of his life and work which may serve as an introduction to both�.
Branwell and his sisters spring to life immediately. Their sad beginning � their mother dying when Branwell was tiny, and the consequent deaths of the eldest two Bronte sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, in 1825 � caused the four remaining siblings to mould themselves into an impenetrable group. From the very beginning, du Maurier states that Charlotte, Emily and Anne were all greatly inspired by their brother, particularly during their early childhood: ‘None of these novels [Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall] would have come into being had not their creators lived, during childhood, in this fantasy world, which was largely inspired and directed by their only brother, Patrick Branwell Bronte�. She goes on to say that in their childhood, the four children wrote tiny books together in ‘a blend of Yorkshire, Greek and Latin which could only be spoken among the four of them, to the mystification of their elders�. Branwell certainly comes across as an inventive child: ‘Imitative as a monkey, the boy was speaking in brogue on a Monday, broad Yorkshire on a Tuesday and back to the west country on the Wednesday�, and it is clear that du Maurier holds compassion for him.
Du Maurier discusses Branwell’s work throughout, often relating his creative output to the things which he was experiencing in life: ‘Although, on examination, Branwell’s manuscripts show that he did not possess the amazing talent of his famous sisters, they prove him to have had a boyhood and youth of almost incredibly productivity, so spending himself in the process of describing the lives and loves of his imaginary characters that invention was exhausted by the time he was twenty-one�. His poetry particularly is often vivid:
“Backward I look upon my life,
And see one waste of storm and strife,
One wrack of sorrows, hopes and pain,
Vanishing to arise again!
That life has moved through evening, where
Continual shadows veiled my sphere;
From youth’s horizon upward rolled
To life’s meridian, dark and cold.�
The secondary materials included � a large bibliography, notes, sources, and a list of Branwell’s manuscripts � are extensive, and it is clear that du Maurier did an awful lot of research on and around her subject before putting pen to paper. The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte includes quotes from Branwell’s letters, as well as his own prose. Secondary documents of Charlotte’s have been taken into account, particularly when discussing Branwell’s illness and death. Instances of literary criticism from a handful of different sources are also present. Du Maurier marvellously weaves in the social history of the period � the death of kings and queens, for example.
Whilst he is not always likeable, Branwell is an incredibly interesting subject for a biography, particularly for an author such as du Maurier to tackle. She has demonstrated the many sides of his character, some of which were reserved particularly for certain people. Du Maurier does continually talk of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, particularly during their childhoods, but one expects that it would be hard to write such a biography without taking them into account so often. She does continually assert the place of Branwell in the Bronte family, however, and admirably, he is always her main focus.
Of the portrait of the Bronte sisters shown, du Maurier writes: ‘Close inspection of the group has lately shown that what was thought to be a pillar is, in reality, the painted-out head and shoulders of the artist himself. The broad high forehead, the hair puffed at the sides, the line of coat and collar, all are there. Perhaps Branwell did not consider that he had done his own face justice, and in a fit of irritation smudged himself into oblivion�.
The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte was first published in 1960, and remains an accessible and fresh portrait of a shadowy � and often overshadowed � character. Du Maurier’s non-fiction is eloquent, and is written so beautifully. She uses lush descriptions throughout, so much so that it occasionally feels as though you are actually reading a novel. The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte is quite slim in terms of biography; it runs to just 231 pages in the Penguin edition. The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte does follow a largely chronological structure. Interestingly, however, the book’s initial chapter deals with his death, and then loops back to his childhood. Through du Maurier, one really gets an understanding of Branwell’s personality, as well as learning of his hopes and fears.
The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte is extremely well set out, and is easy to read. The chapters are all rather short, and consequently it can be dipped in and out of, or read alongside other books. Again, du Maurier’s wrork is thorough and well plotted, and provides an insightful and rewarding look into a relatively neglected part of the Bronte quartet.
In her introduction, du Maurier sets out her reasons for producing a biography of a figure who was largely overshadowed by the fame of his three surviving sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne: ‘One day the definitive biography of this tragic young man will be published. Meanwhile, many years of interest in the subject, and much reading, have prompted the present writer to attempt a study of his life and work which may serve as an introduction to both�.
Branwell and his sisters spring to life immediately. Their sad beginning � their mother dying when Branwell was tiny, and the consequent deaths of the eldest two Bronte sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, in 1825 � caused the four remaining siblings to mould themselves into an impenetrable group. From the very beginning, du Maurier states that Charlotte, Emily and Anne were all greatly inspired by their brother, particularly during their early childhood: ‘None of these novels [Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall] would have come into being had not their creators lived, during childhood, in this fantasy world, which was largely inspired and directed by their only brother, Patrick Branwell Bronte�. She goes on to say that in their childhood, the four children wrote tiny books together in ‘a blend of Yorkshire, Greek and Latin which could only be spoken among the four of them, to the mystification of their elders�. Branwell certainly comes across as an inventive child: ‘Imitative as a monkey, the boy was speaking in brogue on a Monday, broad Yorkshire on a Tuesday and back to the west country on the Wednesday�, and it is clear that du Maurier holds compassion for him.
Du Maurier discusses Branwell’s work throughout, often relating his creative output to the things which he was experiencing in life: ‘Although, on examination, Branwell’s manuscripts show that he did not possess the amazing talent of his famous sisters, they prove him to have had a boyhood and youth of almost incredibly productivity, so spending himself in the process of describing the lives and loves of his imaginary characters that invention was exhausted by the time he was twenty-one�. His poetry particularly is often vivid:
“Backward I look upon my life,
And see one waste of storm and strife,
One wrack of sorrows, hopes and pain,
Vanishing to arise again!
That life has moved through evening, where
Continual shadows veiled my sphere;
From youth’s horizon upward rolled
To life’s meridian, dark and cold.�
The secondary materials included � a large bibliography, notes, sources, and a list of Branwell’s manuscripts � are extensive, and it is clear that du Maurier did an awful lot of research on and around her subject before putting pen to paper. The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte includes quotes from Branwell’s letters, as well as his own prose. Secondary documents of Charlotte’s have been taken into account, particularly when discussing Branwell’s illness and death. Instances of literary criticism from a handful of different sources are also present. Du Maurier marvellously weaves in the social history of the period � the death of kings and queens, for example.
Whilst he is not always likeable, Branwell is an incredibly interesting subject for a biography, particularly for an author such as du Maurier to tackle. She has demonstrated the many sides of his character, some of which were reserved particularly for certain people. Du Maurier does continually talk of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, particularly during their childhoods, but one expects that it would be hard to write such a biography without taking them into account so often. She does continually assert the place of Branwell in the Bronte family, however, and admirably, he is always her main focus.
Of the portrait of the Bronte sisters shown, du Maurier writes: ‘Close inspection of the group has lately shown that what was thought to be a pillar is, in reality, the painted-out head and shoulders of the artist himself. The broad high forehead, the hair puffed at the sides, the line of coat and collar, all are there. Perhaps Branwell did not consider that he had done his own face justice, and in a fit of irritation smudged himself into oblivion�.
The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte was first published in 1960, and remains an accessible and fresh portrait of a shadowy � and often overshadowed � character. Du Maurier’s non-fiction is eloquent, and is written so beautifully. She uses lush descriptions throughout, so much so that it occasionally feels as though you are actually reading a novel. The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte is quite slim in terms of biography; it runs to just 231 pages in the Penguin edition. The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte does follow a largely chronological structure. Interestingly, however, the book’s initial chapter deals with his death, and then loops back to his childhood. Through du Maurier, one really gets an understanding of Branwell’s personality, as well as learning of his hopes and fears.
The Infernal World of Bramwell Bronte is extremely well set out, and is easy to read. The chapters are all rather short, and consequently it can be dipped in and out of, or read alongside other books. Again, du Maurier’s wrork is thorough and well plotted, and provides an insightful and rewarding look into a relatively neglected part of the Bronte quartet.
February 5, 2023
“𝐼� 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓉, 𝓌𝒽𝓎, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝒶𝓃 𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝒥𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝐻𝑜𝑔𝑔, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒢𝑜𝒹 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓂𝒶𝓎 𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝒫𝒶𝓉𝓇𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝐵𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓌𝑒𝓁𝓁 𝐵𝓇𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒.�
I grew up 12 miles from Haworth and still live nearby in neighbouring Halifax so like to think I’m well versed in the Brontë family. I’ve read biographies of Charlotte and Emily, and this, like most Brontë accounts relies heavily on the correspondence between Charlotte and Ellen Nussey of Birstall, so sometimes they can get repetitive - but not this one.
This is a very well researched account (if I’m being picky I will say it had a few geographical and name errors) and so many interesting areas are explored with originality make this a really addictive read. It was news to me of how much time Branwell spent in Halifax and of his friendship with another tortured soul, Joseph Bentley Leyland.
Where many other accounts and reads of the Brontës aren’t, du Maurier is very sympathetic to Branwell’s failure to thrive whilst still recognising all the opportunities and liberties that were invested in him, making this such a sobering and heartfelt read.
I grew up 12 miles from Haworth and still live nearby in neighbouring Halifax so like to think I’m well versed in the Brontë family. I’ve read biographies of Charlotte and Emily, and this, like most Brontë accounts relies heavily on the correspondence between Charlotte and Ellen Nussey of Birstall, so sometimes they can get repetitive - but not this one.
This is a very well researched account (if I’m being picky I will say it had a few geographical and name errors) and so many interesting areas are explored with originality make this a really addictive read. It was news to me of how much time Branwell spent in Halifax and of his friendship with another tortured soul, Joseph Bentley Leyland.
Where many other accounts and reads of the Brontës aren’t, du Maurier is very sympathetic to Branwell’s failure to thrive whilst still recognising all the opportunities and liberties that were invested in him, making this such a sobering and heartfelt read.
June 27, 2024
“Noble writings, works of art, music or poetry, now, instead of rousing my imagination, cause a whirlwind of blighting sorrow that sweeps over my mind with unspeakable dreariness, and if I sit down and try to write all ideas that used to come clothed in sunlight now press round me in funeral black; for nearly every pleasurable excitement that I used to know has changed to insipidity or pain.�
Poor Branwell� & happy birthday!
Poor Branwell� & happy birthday!
March 27, 2024
sympathetic take on branwell’s life, which is more uncommon in brontë biographies. very interesting and very detailed, which i have mixed feeling about (especially when du maurier supposed a lot of internal thoughts and reasonings). crazy read tho
March 4, 2022
Motivated by her overt sympathy for Branwell Bronte, DuMaurier veers excessively into the realm of the speculative here.
January 27, 2023
It’s depressing with purple prose by Daphne and bad poetry from Branwell, I really couldn’t recommend this to anyone unless you are some bizarre Daphne completist.
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