An excellent life of Charlotte Brontë as well as her siblings. It starts in medias res with Brontë in Belgium but then goes back the beginning with her father, his marriage and his children. The story really picks up in the third chapter when Charlotte and her siblings start composing their imaginary worlds of Glass Town, Angria, Gondol and more. The descriptions of the three girls and their brother lost in their imaginations are almost worth reading standalone even without the full life. It then goes through the father's belief in the son Branwell, his failure, drug addiction, and death juxtaposed against the sisters all doing their writing, the rejection of Charlotte's first novel, the success of [b:Jane Eyre|10210|Jane Eyre|Charlotte Brontë|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1557343311l/10210._SY75_.jpg|2977639], the release of the other sisters' books, Charlotte's difficulty in capitalization on her initial success, her sisters' death, her introduction to the literary scene in the capital, her marriage, and then her tragic death--with a postscript about the people and letters that survived.

Overall Claire Harman does not encrust Charlotte Brontë with saintly simplicity but instead underscores her turbulence, her unrequited love for the Belgian schoolmaster, and other passions that were mostly contained in her own head and her own family. I haven't read [a:Elizabeth Gaskell|1413437|Elizabeth Gaskell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1223499865p2/1413437.jpg]'s classic biography (but will some day) but Harman both seems to owe her a tremendous debt for writing the first draft of history, including interviewing various people she knew, but also Harman seems to be trying to overcome and rewrite the myths that Gaskell helped to form and perpetuate.

As someone that only knew the barest of the outline of the lives of the Brontë's I was really glad to be able to be absorbed in it and even enjoy some of the suspense (e.g., I didn't know if her true identity was known during her life--it turns out it was).

I should say that I loved Jane Eyre, enjoyed [b:The Professor|31175|The Professor|Charlotte Brontë|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1220194504l/31175._SY75_.jpg|2685446] but could not get through [b:Vilette|28475953|Vilette|Charlotte Brontë|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1452144728l/28475953._SY75_.jpg|40852693]. But enough of Vilette was autobiographical that now that I have this context--and know better what to expect from it--I'll try again.