The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are well known English poets and novelists of the nineteenth century. This volume closely examines Charlotte’s masterpiece Jane Eyre, Emily’s influential Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, to give readers a deeper sense of the themes throughout these important works and the influences behind their creation. Common themes throughout the sisters’ works are love, gender, class, and the intersections of all three, and this volume explores these topics and more, setting the work of the Brontë sisters into various contexts, such as biographical, historical, social, cultural, and aesthetic.

The volume starts out with an introductory essay by Jeremy Tambling in the format of a self-interview, asking himself questions such as “Why are the Brontës worth reading?”, “Are the writings of the Brontës still ‘relevant’?”, and more. This is followed by a brief biography of the Brontës by volume editor Robert C. Evans.

These essays are followed by four Critical Context essays:

• “The air swarmed with Catherines”: Moving Words and Stereoscopic Narrative in Wuthering Heights, by Kara M. Manning
• The Myth of the Brontës, by Brandon Schneeberger
• “It is only English girls who can thus be trusted to travel alone”: Class, Travel, and Work in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, by Sarah McNeely
• Lucy Snowe in Belgium: Work and Colonialism in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, by Sarah McNeely

Next comes the Critical Readings section of this book, which contains the following essays:

• Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor: Overbearing Men and the Gleam of Female Intellect, by John Rignall
• Emily Brontë: The Man Branwell Should Have Been, by Tracy Hayes
• The Experience of Marriage in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Jeremy Tambling
• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1950–1989, by Robert C. Evans
• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1990–2020, by Joyce Ahn
• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1950–1989, by Robert C. Evans
• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1990–2020, by Joyce Ahn
• Charlotte Brontë’s “Other” Novels: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1974–2008, by Robert C. Evans
• Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë: A Survey of Editorial Introductions, 1969–2020, by Robert C. Evans
• The 1996 Film of Jane Eyre: A Survey of Reviews, by Jordan Bailey
• The 2009 Film of Wuthering Heights: Critical Problems and Possibilities, by McKenna Odom
• The 2011 Film of Wuthering Heights: A Survey of Reviews, Mikia Holloway

In the final section, Resources, easy-to-follow lists are provided to help guide the reader through important dates and moments in the authors’ lives. A selection of further reading is then provided. Each essay in Critical Insights: The Brontë Sisters includes a list of Works Cited and detailed endnotes. Also included in this volume is a Bibliography, biographies of the Editor and Contributors, and alphabetical Index as well as Chronology of the Brontë Sisters’ Lives and Works by the Brontë Sisters.

The Critical Insights Series distills the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world’s most studied literature. Edited and written by some of academia’s most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights: The Brontë Sisters provides authoritative, in-depth scholarship that students and researchers will rely on for years. This volume is destined to become a valuable purchase for all.

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