All three retained the first letter of their first names: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Anne became Acton Bell, and Emily became Ellis Bell. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first names.

It was the discovery of Emily's poetic talent by Charlotte that led her and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, to publish a joint collection of their poetry in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. They later tried to open up a school at their home, but had no pupils. Later, with her sister Charlotte, she attended a private school in Brussels. In 1842, Emily commenced work as a governess at Miss Patchett's Ladies Academy at Law Hill School, near Halifax, leaving after about six months due to homesickness. Little of Emily's work from this period survived, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood, Fannie Ratchford, 1941). In childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell Brontë created imaginary lands (Angria, Gondal, Gaaldine, Oceania), which were featured in stories they wrote. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth, where Emily's father was perpetual curate, and it was in these surroundings that their literary oddities flourished.

She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. She published under the masculine pen name Ellis Bell.Įmily was born in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, being younger than Charlotte Brontë and older than Anne Brontë. Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature.

Cime tempestose by Emily Brontë