Literati Associated with the Brontës

Once their novels had been published -and it took some time for the literary pundits in London to recognize their genius -the Bronte sisters quickly attracted the attention of the leading critics and writers of their time. Their publisher, George Smith, writers William Thackeray and Charles Kingsley, politician W. E. Forster, and of course, Elizabeth Gaskell, were all early admirers. After her sisters' deaths, Charlotte was lionized by the London literary world and met many well-known figures such as Wordsworth's son-in-law, Edward Quillinian, and Matthew Arnold during her visits to London and at Harriot Martineau's house in the Lake District. Despite chronic shyness in company, Charlotte was blunt and outspoken in her letters, frequently passing unfavourable comments on the literati she met. An unswerving provincial and possessing a puritanical cast of mind, she regarded some -if not most -of the literary figures she met as effete. Her first impression of Matthew Arnold was that 'though striking and pre-possessing in appearance, his manner displeases from its seeming foppery' . However, he improved on better acquaintance, though I suspect she regarded most of the London set as fops. Perhaps this was a reaction against her brother's imitating them. She spoke contemptuously of the 'minor Guerillas [the peasant Spanish freedom fighters against Napoleon] and Bohemians of Letters' she met; and with great distaste of Charles Dickens, whose ostentation she disliked. But despite the occasional irritation with Thackeray when he toadied to the aristocracy, she remained a fervent admirer of him. He later wrote a preface to the two chapters of her unfinished novel The Last Sketch in a posthumous article in the Cornhill Magazine. After their deaths, interest in the Brontes grew rapidly, and following the publication of Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte in 1857, their fame snowballed on both sides of the Atlantic. A steady stream of visitors found their way to Haworth and turned into a flood which hasn't abated yet. 1