The Brontë Story. Tim Vicary

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      The Brontë Story

      THE BRONTË STORY

      Some people have a special talent, for music, or for drawing and painting, or for writing. No one knows where this talent comes from. Perhaps people are born with it; perhaps it comes from God. Or perhaps it is chance or luck that allows this talent to grow, like sunshine bringing a plant into flower.

      The special talent of three of the Brontë girls was for writing. No one taught them to write – they taught themselves, and the three of them wrote some of the great novels of the nineteenth century. But life was not easy at home in Haworth. The family was not rich, and the children had to work for a living. And one by one, illness and death cut off their lives and their talents. But the novels written by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne live on, year after year.

      This is not one of the stories they wrote; it is about them. It is the story that their father did not write, but might have written: the story of the family that he had for such a short time.

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis edition © Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19912 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479109 0 The publishers would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce photographs: The Brontë Society (at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth), and the Mary Evans Picture Library pp45 (Emily Brontë/SZ Photo/Scherl), 52 (Charlotte Brontë/INTERFOTO /Sammlung Rauch). We would also like to thank Kathryn White of the Brontë Society for her valuable help with the photographsWord count (main text): 10,600 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookworms e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478675 1e-Book first published 2012

      1

      Haworth

      There was a cold wind this afternoon, but the sun shone for an hour or two. I walked out on the moors behind the house. The sheep were hiding from the wind under the stone walls, and there were grey clouds over the hills to the west. It is only November, but I could smell snow in the air.

      It will be a cold winter, this year of 1855.

      My name is Patrick Brontë, and I am seventy-eight years old. I am the rector of the village of Haworth. Haworth is a village of small, grey stone houses on the side of a hill in the north of England, and I live in a house at the top of the hill, next to the church and the graveyard.