Page "Charlotte Brontë" Paragraph 21

Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857.

It was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another, and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's achievements, she concentrated on private details of Charlotte's life, emphasising aspects which countered accusations of ' coarseness ' which had been levelled at her writing.

Though frank in places, Gaskell was selective about which details she revealed ; she suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Heger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and source of distress to Charlotte's still-living father, husband and friends.

Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming, he did not allow his children to eat meat.

This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage, as Juliet Barker points out in her biography, The Brontës.

It has been argued that the approach of Mrs Gaskell transferred the focus of attention away from the ' difficult ' novels, not just Charlotte's, but all the sisters, and began a process of sanctification of their private lives.