7 h 54 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 54 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How does a woman who shuns notice write a novel as fierce as Wuthering Heights?
In Emily Brontë, Agnes Mary Frances Robinson turns toward the private woman behind the novel. She follows Emily from childhood at Haworth to her early death, looking at the Yorkshire parsonage, the moors, and the family ties that shape a life rooted in home.
For decades, readers know Emily chiefly through her sister Charlotte’s few remarks. Robinson seeks a fuller portrait: a woman reserved with strangers, loyal to home, and possessed of a will of her own. Alongside Wuthering Heights, she explores the poems and the imagined world Emily shares with her sister Anne.
What you’ll discover
- The house at Haworth Enter the Yorkshire parsonage where Emily grows up with her clergyman father, Patrick Brontë.
- A fiercely private character Meet Robinson’s Emily, whose reserve with strangers sits beside a deep attachment to home.
- The world of Gondal Explore the invented peoples and quarrels that Emily and Anne share, and their connection to her poems.
- Quiet life, fierce writing Follow Robinson’s attempt to understand the distance between Emily’s private habits and her powerful novel.
- A Victorian biographer’s view Discover how a poet and scholar reads Emily’s character, family life, and writing.
Who will love it
For readers who love Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and want the household behind them, and for anyone drawn to moors, secret writing sisters, and a family shadowed by loss.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A private life shaped powerful writing
- Silence gave invention room to grow
- School brings loss into the family
- Freedom on the moors sustains Emily
- Emily protects her own creative mind
- Emily keeps compassion for her brother
- Private poems begin a shared venture
- Close experience feeds an imagined world
- Everyday tenderness changes the stern image
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- Large print hardcover
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Emily Brontë
by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson · 1883
A vicar's daughter on the Yorkshire moors writes poems in secret and one novel the world ignores.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Why does a woman who dies at twenty-nine with no praise at all now stand beside the great writers? Emily Brontë, a vicar's daughter from Haworth in Yorkshire, writes one novel, Wuthering Heights, and a handful of poems.
Emily Brontë at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 35 min3 h 35 min fast, 5 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 64,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1883by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two parents gave the children will and weakness
The author starts with a puzzle. Neither Brontë parent shows a real gift for writing, yet all the children have it. Genius, she says, can grow from a mix of traits.
Their father, Patrick, rises from a poor farming family in County Down, Ireland, to Cambridge and a curacy in Yorkshire. The author admires his will but sees vanity, a hard temper, and a cold streak. Their mother, Maria Branwell, is a gentle, well-educated woman from Penzance. She bears six children in seven years, moves to Haworth in 1820, and dies in September 1821.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 13 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1883
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Robinson, Agnes Mary Frances. Emily Brontë. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/emily-bronte.
Robinson, A. M. F. (2026). Emily Brontë. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/emily-bronte (Original work published 1883)
Robinson, Agnes Mary Frances. Emily Brontë. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/emily-bronte.
@book{robinson2026emily,
author = {Robinson, Agnes Mary Frances},
title = {Emily Brontë},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/emily-bronte},
note = {First published 1883}
}
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What is the book Emily Brontë by A. Mary F. Robinson about?
It is a life of Emily Brontë, from her parents and the Haworth parsonage through school, Brussels, her poems, and Wuthering Heights to her death at twenty-nine. It draws on Charlotte's letters and on friends who knew her.
Who were the Bell brothers, Currer, Ellis, and Acton?
They were the pen names of the three sisters. Currer was Charlotte, Ellis was Emily, and Acton was Anne. They chose neutral names because they feared that women authors would be judged with prejudice.
Did Branwell Brontë write Wuthering Heights?
The author rejects the claim firmly. She points to the weak style of Branwell's own writing, to Charlotte's word, to the publishers, and to a servant who saw Emily writing. She grants that his troubles fed the novel.
The author
Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
1857–1944 · Anglo-French poet and biographer
A. Mary F. Robinson was an English poet and woman of letters of the late Victorian era, admired for her lyric verse and for Emily Brontë, one of the first full-length biographies of the novelist and still a valuable early portrait. Her sensitive study of Brontë.
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