This volume covers the period from 1852 until Charlotte Brontes tragically early death in March 1855. We read of her long struggle to complete Villette, and her indignation when Harriet Martineau finds in it evidence that her mind is "full of the subject of one passion-love." Complete texts of many letters to Mrs. Gaskell illuminate Charlotte's friendship with the fellow-novelist who was to be her biographer. Subsequent letters touchingly reveal her love for her husband, her "tenderest nurse" during her last illness.
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These letters give an insight into the life of a writer whose novels continue to be bestsellers. They reveal much about Charlotte Bront: e's personal life, her family relationships, and the society in which she lived. Many of her early letters are written with vigour, vivacity, and an engaging aptitude for self-mockery. In contrast, her letters to her "master," the Belgian schoolteacher Constantin Heger, reveal her intense, obsessive longing for some response from him. Other letters are deeply moving, when Charlotte endures the agony of her brother's and sisters' untimely deaths. We learn...