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Harman, Claire. Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart. New York, Knopf, 2016.

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Portrait

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Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816 in Thornton, United Kingdom. Her father was Patrick Brontë and her mother was Maria Branwell Brontë. At the time she was born, she had two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth.

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After the Brontë family moved to Haworth, United Kingdom in 1820 for their father's job, their mother Maria Brontë fell ill. She had been weak ever since and had been on bed rest by the end of January 1821. Charlotte was only 5 years old at this time. The eldest sister, Maria (7 years old), was appointed to take care of the rest of the children before their aunt Elizabeth Branwell came to help. On September 15, 1821, Maria Brontë passed away at age 38 due to cancer. After months of seclusion from their mother, the children were distraught. None of the family fully recovered from her death.

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When her mother died, Charlotte Brontë and her siblings needed someone to take care of them. While their father searched for a new wife, the children stayed with their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. Her aunt was described to have "seemed consciously to adopt an unsentimental, rather withholding demeanor, so as not to intrude too far on her dead sister's territory," (Harman 48). Elizabeth Branwell knew that she could never replace their mother and seemed to not have love powerful enough to be adored by the children.

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After the death of their mother, Patrick Brontë decided to send his three oldest daughters to Cowan Bridge School to gain an education. He first sent Maria and Elizabeth in July and later sent Charlotte to the school on August 10.  Charlotte showed resentment toward this school and its founder. In page 46 of the biography, it is said that Charlotte disliked "the cold, the scant, bad food, the rote learning, the strict discipline,  the soul-stifling air of Calvinism," (Harman 46). She also complained that the school was prone to outbreaks of typhus and scrofula due to its location and that the school as a whole was hazardous to students.

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Early in the year of 1825, there was an outbreak of typhus fever at Cowan Bridge. This was during the time that Charlotte, Emily, and their older two sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were attending the school. The school's lack of communication was a factor in many of the sicknesses of their students and most certainly harmed Maria and Elizabeth. Maria had shown symptoms of a sickness but Patrick, her father, was not notified of them by the school. Maria did not have typhus, but had pulmonary tuberculosis. Due to the lack of communication, Patrick was slow to remove Maria from the school but eventually did and brought her back home. After being cared for for two and a half months, Maria died on May 6. Worried that his other daughter Elizabeth may be sick, he went to the school to get her and his two other daughters, but he was too late as Elizabeth also died two weeks after. The deaths of her two older sisters stunned and terrified Charlotte as she was eight years old and her sisters being only ten and eleven.

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During the summer and autumn of 1830, Patrick Brontë, Charlotte's father, fell ill with a lung infection. Patrick knew that if he died, Elizabeth Branwell would not be able to financially support his children and that they would need to find jobs of their own. Patrick was always thinking about the future of his children, with Charlotte even saying, "He didn't need such a prompt to consider his children's futures; it must have always been on his mind," (Harman 69). He asked for help from friends to find a school to enlist his children in. Charlotte's godparents ended up not only finding her a school but also paying for the tuition. Charlotte was set to attend the school in the next upcoming year, just months before her fifteenth birthday.

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At her new school, Charlotte Brontë met two new people, Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey. Mary Taylor was the eldest daughter of a local cloth manufacturer and attended the school before Charlotte arrived. Ellen Nussey was the daughter of a cloth merchant from a nearby town. and had joined the school not too long after Charlotte did. Ellen and Charlotte being the new kids was a factor in their long relationship as they were both in a new environment and could start to understand the school together. These three girls became very good friends and their friendship extended into adulthood. Ellen and Mary helped Charlotte overcome her separation from home and her family, even being called her "substitute sisters," (Harman 74).

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In the summer of 1834, two of Charlotte's pencil drawings were accepted by the Royal Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts for their annual summer exhibition in Leeds. Her two drawings were of the Bolton Priory and the Kirkstall Abbey. The Kirkstall Abbey was the location her parents engaged at and she had visited the Bolton Priory the previous summer with her friend Ellen Nussey. The art exhibition in Leeds was Charlotte's highest points in her artistic career as after that, she never exhibited anywhere or attempted to sell her art.