Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë, younger sister of Charlotte, was born in Yorkshire in 1818 and grew up in the parsonage on the moors at Haworth. Reserved and silent, she had almost no dealings with outsiders, and the times she left home in her life can be counted on one hand; each time she fell ill with homesickness. She loved the moors and often walked alone in the wind, with the family dogs and the wild creatures for company. With her younger sister Anne she wrote the saga of an imaginary kingdom called Gondal and composed many poems. In 1846 the three sisters published a volume of poems at their own expense, which sold two copies. The next year, under the pen name Ellis Bell, she published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, which mostly shocked and puzzled the critics. A year later she caught cold at her brother's funeral, refused all medical help, and died at thirty.