BIOGRAPHY AND PERSONALITY OF A FAMOUS LEO: EMILY BRONTE

Writer. Born July 30, 1818 in Yorkshire, England. Said to be the brightest, most intense, and most difficult of the Brontes, Emily was raised in a strict Anglican home by her clergyman father and a religious aunt after her mother and two eldest siblings died. She and her sister Charlotte attended the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge, but were largely educated at home.

Though Emily was arguably the most gifted writer of the three Bronte sisters, she only published one book in her lifetime, Wuthering Heights (1847). A story of doomed love and revenge, the book did not receive the immediate success of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, but has since earned its place among the masterpieces of English literature.

The deaths of the Bronte siblings are almost as notable as their literary legacy. Emily died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848, having caught cold at her brother Branwell's funeral in September. Anne died the following year, and in 1855, Charlotte died during her pregnancy.

© 2004 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.