Charlotte Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 at Thornton, near Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the third surviving child of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. She died on 31 March 1855, not yet thirty-nine years old, after creating a body of work that transformed the English novel. Though chiefly celebrated as a novelist, she began as a poet, wrote poetry throughout her life, and brought a poet’s inten…
“I would always rather be happy than dignified, and I ran a real risk of being thought ridiculous.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, into a family whose modest circumstances, intellectual liveliness, and close emotional bonds supplied the material conditions for an extraordinary literary education. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. Her father was rector of the parishes of Steventon and Deane; her mother came from the…
“But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Longing
