Violence and the Brontes

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The well-known and well-loved writings of Anne, Charlotte and Emily Bronte are full of violence. From the many battles waged in their early writings to the violent emotions and threats expressed in their published novels, the Brontes' representations of brutality shocked Victorian reviewers and continue to surprise readers in the twenty-first century. Violence and the Brontes accounts for such intense reactions by reading the sisters' literary violences as transformational, encompassing harm, pain and suffering while at times also signalling creativity and even renewal. Through a new reading of the Brontes' major works, as well as film, stage and television adaptations, this book argues that violence is at the centre of the Brontes' imaginative engagements with nineteenth-century life. In the process, it demonstrates how violence continues to be vital to interpreting the Brontes' reception history and afterlives in modern culture.