The play of the Islanders was formed in December, 1827, in the following manner. One night, about the time when the cold sleet and dreary fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms, and high piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety if lighting a candle, from which she came off victorious, no candle having been produced. A long pause succeeded, which was at last broken by Branwell saying, in a lazy manner, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ This was echoed by Emily and Anne.

(Tabby) ‘Wha ya may go t’ bed.’

(Branwell) ‘I’d rather do anything than that.’

Charlotte) ‘Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby? Oh! suppose we had each an island of our own.’

(Branwell) ‘If we had I would choose the Island of Man.’

(Charlotte) ‘And I would choose the Isle of Wight.’

(Emily) ‘The Isle of Arran for me.’

(Anne) ‘And mine should be Guernsey.’

We then chose who should be chief men in our islands. Branwell chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, My Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons, Christopher North and Co., and Mr Abernethy. Here our conversation was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking seven, and we were summoned off to bed. The next day we added many others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the kingdom. After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred. In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to contain 1,000 children. The manner of the building was as follows. The Island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more the work of enchantment than anything real, etc.

These volumes, and many other written documents, are now known as the Bronte’s juvenilia. Elizabeth Gaskell describes Charlotte Bronte’s juvenilia: “While her description of any real occurrence is, as we have seen, homely, graphic, and forcible, when she gives way to her powers of creation, her fancy and her language alike run riot, sometimes to the very borders of apparent delirium. Of this wild weird writing, a single example will suffice. It is a letter to the editor of one of the Little Magazines.

Sir,

It is well known that the Genii have declared that unless they perform certain arduous duties every year, of a mysterious nature, all the worlds in the firmament will be burnt up, gathered together in one mighty globe, which will roll in solitary grandeur through the vast wilderness of space, inhabited only by the four high princes of the Genii, till time shall be succeeded by Eternity; and the impudence of this is only to be paralleled by another of their assertions, namely, ‘that by their magic might they can reduce the world to a desert, the purest waters to streams of livid poison, and the clearest lakes to stagnant waters, the pestilential vapours of which shall slay all living creatures, except the blood-thirsty beast of the forest, and the ravenous bird of the rock. But that in the midst of this desolation the palace of the Chief Geni shall rise sparkling in the wilderness, and the horrible howl of their war-cry shall spread over the land at morning, at noontide and night; but that they shall have their annual feast over the bones of the dead, and shall yearly rejoice with the joy of victors. I think, sir, that the horrible wickedness of this needs no remark, and therefore I haste to subscribe myself, etc.

Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell

There are two things to understand about this letter written to Little Magazine; one, this little girl was only thirteen at the time it was written, and two, little girls-not to mention women-were frowned upon when it came to writing anything at all. Proper conduct for a woman in the early 1800’s was to learn to sew, keep a proper house, and adorn herself in a way that was pleasing to marry a man who would take care of the finances of a home.

Arrangements were made for Charlotte Bronte to further her education. January 1831, she was sent to Roe Head where she studied under a Miss Wooler. Miss Wooler kept a small number of young ladies as her pupils-seven to ten-and her kind nature made this setting more of a private family than a school. It was while studying at Roe Head that Charlotte Bronte took serious notice of the politics of the Reform Bill written by the House of Lords and the resignation of Earl Grey. Charlotte also talked to the other pupils of her older sisters and their talents and kindness-she missed them terribly. Yet she kept herself quite busy with her reading and her writing, learned the French language, history, and math.

After two years of study, she returned home where she taught her sisters and brother everything she learned at Roe Head. They started receiving novels at the parsonage and read everything they could get their hands on. Life became somewhat dreary for Charlotte Bronte as she missed her schoolmates and the livelier events that took place at Roe Head. She constantly sent letters to friends in the hopes that they would come to the parsonage to visit, but the unsanitary conditions of the Bronte’s home made visitors very uncomfortable. The Bronte’s loneliness kept them busy reading and writing. On July 29th, 1835, Charlotte Bronte, at nineteen, returned back to Roe Head to teach. Emily Bronte went with her as her pupil.

Emily didn’t take to life away from the parsonage as well as Charlotte. She became very ill and home sick as a letter written by Charlotte explains:

My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her;--out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best-loved was liberty. Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it she perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very secluded , but unrestricted and un-artificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindest auspices), was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning, when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me. I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength, threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die, if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school; and it was some years before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured on (The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Charlotte Bronte stayed on at Roe Head to teach and Emily went home.

From Roe Head, Charlotte Bronte, highly recommended by Miss Wooler, took her first teaching position where she taught from the children’s home. This wasn’t quite what she thought it might be. Charlotte Bronte left this job shortly after taking it on and went back to the parsonage. It was about this time that Charlotte, Emily and Anne made a decision that Branwell would amount to absolutely nothing and that these three women were going to have to do something about their financial future. Charlotte Bronte decided to write Southey, the Poet Laureate, on December 29th, 1836, asking for advice on her poetry works. In the beginning of March she received her reply:

…there is danger of which I would, with all kindness and all earnestness, warn you. The day dreams in which you habitually indulge are likely to induce a distempered state of mind; and in proportion as all the ordinary uses of the world seem to you flat and unprofitable, you will be unfitted for them without becoming fitted for anything else. Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation…(The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

And Charlotte Bronte replied with a kind thank you and put aside her aspirations of writing poetry.

Charlotte Bronte now set her life to teaching. But there was a part of her that grew weary. She wanted desperately to do more than just teach. She spent her spare time traveling back and forth from the parsonage to Miss Wooler’s. She met a man who took a fancy to her and asked for her hand in marriage. Though Charlotte Bronte thought him kind, she didn’t feel the “intense attachment which would make [her] willing to die for him.”

April, 1839, Charlotte Bronte took her first position as governess. As she carried on with her duties, she found her employer to be selfish and tyrannical. A letter to Emily stated:

I have striven to be pleased with my new situation. The country, the house and the grounds are, as I have said, divine; but alack-a-day, there is such a thing as seeing all beautiful around you-pleasant woods, white paths, green lawns, and blue sunshiny sky-and not having a free moment or a free thought left to enjoy them. The children are constantly with me. As for correcting them, I quickly found that was out of the question; they are to do as they like. 

A complaint to the mother only brings black looks on myself, and unjust, partial excuses to screen the children. I have tried that plan once, and succeeded so notably, I shall try no more. I said in my last letter that Mrs.---did not know me. I now begin to find she does not intend to know me; that she cares nothing about me, except to contrive how the greatest possible quantity of labour may be got out of me; and to that end she overwhelms me with oceans of needlework; yards of cambric to hem, muslin nightcaps to make, and, above all, because I can’t help being shy in such an entirely novel scene, surrounded as I have hitherto been strange and constantly changing faces…I used to think I should like to be in the stir of grand folks’ society; but I have had enough of it-it is dreary work to look on and listen. 

I see more clearly than I have ever done before, that a private governess has no existence, is not considered as a living rational being, except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfill…One of the pleasantest afternoons I have spent here-indeed, the only one at all pleasant-was when Mr.---walked out with his children, and I had orders to follow a little behind. As he strolled on through his fields, with his magnificent Newfoundland dog at his side, he looked very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman ought to be. He spoke freely and unaffectedly to the people he met, and, though he indulged his children and allowed them to tease himself far too much, he would not suffer them grossly to insult others (The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Poor health sent Charlotte Bronte back home to the parsonage.

In the winter of 1840, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne re-examined the idea that their financial future would be entirely left up to them. Branwell, now heavily into a life of pleasure, could not be counted on to keep the family’s income sufficient. Charlotte now discovered Emily’s poetry-quite good-and started writing her own poetry again. She also began writing the novel The Professor. But none of this is finished as she excepted another position as governess.

This situation as governess was more pleasing to Charlotte Bronte. A little too pleasing as it is mentioned in a letter to a good friend:

…This place is far better than___, but, God knows, I have enough to do to keep a good heart in the manner. What you said has cheered me a little. I wish I could always act according to your advice. Home-sickness affects me sorely. I like Mr.---extremely (The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Charlotte found herself deeply caring for the gentleman of the house where she was merely the governess. This position which started in March of 1841, ended abruptly in December of that same year. It is said that the Mrs. of the home caught on to the happenings of this young governess’ kindling heart and was asked to leave. Charlotte Bronte sadly went home.

In February 1842, Charlotte and Emily Bronte made plans to attend more classes in Brussels where they could better their French and their general education. Their intent was to learn as much as would help them to open their own school-all the Bronte sisters were hopeful that opening a school would not only keep them at home, but would also help their father with the financial situation. Charlotte Bronte was hired on as an English teacher and her stay in Brussels was lengthened. It was while Charlotte Bronte was in Brussels that her very dear friend took to a sudden illness and died. In Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley, a description of the sudden death of Jessy tells of the feelings she felt at the time of her friend’s death:

He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay, and chattering, and arch-original even now; passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless…yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is made to be a pet.

Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognise the nature of these trees, this foliage-cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place; green sod and a gray marble head-stone-Jessy sleeps below…

But, Jessy, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening, wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky; but it curtains it from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all day on that church tower: it rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard; the nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet. This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago: a howling, rainy autumn even too-when certain who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new made in a heretic cemetery, sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for, so long as they lived; and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling; and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above her buried head. The fire warmed them; Life and Friendship yet blessed them: but Jessy lay cold, coffined, solitary-only the sod screening her from the storm (Chapter 23).

Charlotte Bronte was deeply saddened by the death of her friend. About the same time of her friend’s death, her aunt passed away and she went back to the parsonage.

Charlotte Bronte stayed home long enough to help her sisters, brother and father through the funeral arrangements and then went back to Brussels and carried on with her studies and teaching. She received a diploma December 29th 1843 and returned to the parsonage the following January. The 23rd of January she writes:

Every one asks me what I am going to do, now that I am returned home; and every one seems to expect that I should immediately commence a school. In truth it is what I should wish to do. I desire it above all things. I have sufficient money for the undertaking, and I hope now sufficient qualifications to give me a fair chance of success; yet I cannot yet permit myself to enter upon life-to touch the object which seems now within my reach, and which I have been so long straining to attain. You will ask me why? It is on papa’s account; he is now, as you know, getting old, and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight. I have felt for some months that I ought not to be away from him; and I feel now that it would be too selfish to leave him (at least, as long as Branwell and Anne are absent), in order to pursue selfish interests of my own (The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Hopes of opening a school of her own was put off for the time being. Then Branwell found himself in a little predicament that forced the opening of their school even further off.

Charlotte Bronte finally found a publisher who would print her and her sisters’ poetry. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte publish their first book of poetry under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in May of 1846. Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor was finished and offered to the publisher without success. August that same year, Charlotte Bronte started Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre was partly the memoirs of her times as a governess mixed with a bit of news she heard while in Brussels all rolled into one novel. Charlotte Bronte heard a tale of a writer-whose writings she adored-who had a wife he had to keep in an attic because she was crazy. There was talk of a governess who helped this writer with his children. All accounts of the story Jane Eyre were totally fictitious, yet because Charlotte Bronte’s publisher insisted that Jane Eyre be published an autobiography, (when Jane Eyre was first published it was still under the name Currer Bell, but its second printing was under its true identity and therefore warranted an autobiography) controversy hit the streets of England. Everyone thought for certain that Charlotte Bronte had to have been this writer’s governess, but Charlotte Bronte hadn’t even met the man until after the third edition of Jane Eyre (Dickens’ Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters, Daniel Pool).

The Professor still couldn’t get published but Jane Eyre was published October 16th, 1847. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was published the following December and Anne’s Agnes Grey shortly after that. Jane Eyre received great reviews yet Charlotte Bronte’s father knew nothing of his daughter’s publicity. Charlotte Bronte was urged by her sisters to tell her father of the novel and its publication. The publication he read and enjoyed had its author’s name as Currer Bell.

In June 1848, Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was finished and published. It became rumored that all three authors-Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell-where in fact only one author in his different modes of maturity. Charlotte Bronte was distraught by this rumor and made plans to go see her publisher. All three, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte took a cab to London.

The publisher could hardly believe that the three ladies he referred to as men (or one man) where standing in his office before him with the letter he sent claiming the three authors as one. He talked them into joining him to the opera that night and staying to meet some other literary gentlemen of that time.

Charlotte Bronte enjoyed London and its busy goings-on. It was out in the open now and the literary world now knew that Currer Bell was in fact Charlotte Bronte. She was becoming a bit of a celebrity and many that loved her novel wanted to meet and speak with her. But things weren’t going so great back at the parsonage. Branwell Bronte’s drinking and love for opium caught up with him and his health started declining. Branwell wasn’t the only Bronte whose health was declining, Emily caught a terrible cold and her cough was weakening her body. Emily's cough and shortness of breath began to wear on Charlotte.

The past three weeks have been a dark interval in our humble home. Branwell’s constitution had been failing fast all the summer; but still, neither the doctors nor himself thought him so near his end as he was. He was entirely confined to his bed but for one single day, and was in the village two days before his death. He died, after twenty minutes’ struggle, on Sunday morning, September 24th. He was perfectly conscious till the last agony came on. His mind had undergone the peculiar change which frequently precedes death, two days previously; the calm of better feeling filled it; a return of natural affection marked his last moments. He is in God’s hands now; and the All-Powerful is likewise the All-Merciful. A deep conviction that he rests at last-rests well, after his brief, erring, suffering, feverish life-fills and quiets my mind now. The final separation, the spectacle of his pale corpse, gave me more acute bitter pain that I could have imagined. 

Till the last hour comes, we never know how much we can forgive, pity, regret a near relative. All his vices were and are nothing now. We remember only his woes. Papa was acutely distressed at first, but, on the whole, has borne the event well. Emily and Anne are pretty well, though Anne is always delicate, and Emily has a cold and cough at present. It was my fate to sink at the crisis, when I should have collected my strength. Headache and sickness came on first on the Sunday; I could not regain my appetite. Then internal pain attacked me. I became at once much reduced. It was impossible to touch a morsel. At last, bilious fever declared itself. I was confined to bed a week,--a dreary week. But, thank God! health seems now returning. I can sit up all day, and take moderate nourishment. The doctor said at first, I should be very slow in recovering, but I seem to get on faster than he anticipated. I am truly much better (Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Emily Bronte’s cough worsened. She refused to see a doctor. At noon on the 16th dreary day of December, Emily says to Charlotte, “If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now.” Then she died two hours later. Keeper-Emily’s faithful bull-dog-cried at her door, then followed the casket, as did her father and Charlotte and Anne, to the grave. The dog howled for days after the death of its master. As the year 1848 came to a close, Anne began feeling unwell herself.

Tuberculosis was the name given Anne Bronte’s illness. Her doctor gave her hope that with a better diet and better weather, she could live a longer happier life. Charlotte Bronte wrote to a family friend who lived where Anne could do just that. A sickly Anne Bronte left her home on May 24th and died away from home on May 28th. A very lonely and heart-broken Charlotte Bronte was left to carry on life alone with her father in a cold and solemn parsonage.

Charlotte Bronte finished Shirley shortly after Anne’s death. Shirley was published in October 1849. Though many that were close to her knew the true writer of Shirley, it was still known to the public as being written by Currer Bell. Charlotte Bronte then started her novel Villette. After many controversial reviews and letters concerning the characters in Shirley, Villette was published in January 1853.

Popularity and success were out there for Charlotte Bronte to grasp, but an ailing and overpowering father kept her trapped at home.

Papa and I have just had tea; he is sitting quietly in his room and I in mine; ‘storms of rain’ are sweeping over the garden and churchyard: as to the moors, they are hidden in thick fog. Though alone, I am not unhappy; I have a thousand things to be thankful for, and, amongst the rest, that this morning I received a letter from you [Mrs. Gaskell], and that this evening I have the privilege of answering it…(The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell).

Books were being sent to her by many of her fans and friends. She spent long, lonely hours in her room reading. After reading a novel, she would quickly sit at her desk and reply to its sender on whether or not she enjoyed it or not. Endless days were spent doing her best to look after her father-trying to be his perfect daughter.

An entire year went by before Charlotte Bronte left the parsonage again. She spent a glorious week in London. The week was short, but her father needed her back at the parsonage. After another long autumn, she returned for a longer visit in London. She met a man named James Taylor, he proposes marriage and Charlotte denies him his request:

Could I ever feel enough for -----, to accept of him as a husband? Friendship-gratitude-esteem-I have; but each moment he came near me, and that I could see his eyes fastened on me, my veins ran ice. Now that he is away, I feel far more gently towards him; it is only close by that I grow rigid, stiffening with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger, which nothing softens but his retreat, and a perfect subduing of his manner. I did not want to be proud, not intend to be proud, but I was forced to be so. Most true it is that we are overruled by One above us; that in His hands our very will is as clay in the hands of the potter (The Life of Charlotte Bronte).

Mr. Bronte’s health called Charlotte back home. She began to believe that her visits to London were only ways of running away from the pain and loneliness, and the need to be her father’s helper. She stayed at the parsonage, only allowing visitors to call upon her there. Villette was published in January 1853 while she visited London a very short stay. She met Mrs. Gaskell and found an instant friendship-letters were written back and forth by these two friends quite often.

Visits from her father’s curate-a man named Arthur Bell Nicholls-had taken place for years, but he confessed his love for Charlotte Bronte in December 1852. Mr. Bronte was furious about this proposal of marriage. Charlotte did her best to put this proposal off-she married Mr. Nicholls on June 29th, 1854.

Though Mr. Nicholls was kind and quiet, he found it hard to share his new wife with the many Charlotte Bronte wrote to. She obeyed his wishes and, though not entirely, lessened her letters from the parsonage. She became ill shortly after she was married. Tuberculosis and complications from her pregnancy caused her body to weaken.

Early on Saturday morning, March 31th, the solemn tolling of Haworth church-bell spoke forth the fact of her death to the villagers who had known her from a child, and whose hearts shivered within them as they thought of the two sitting desolate and alone in the old grey house (Elizabeth Gaskell).

The Professor was published three months after her death.

I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature, despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades-stood, shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of his promise; spoke thus-then towering, became a star, and vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense-a worse boon than despair (Villette, Charlotte Bronte).