Mother of the Brontes: When Maria Met Patrick by Sharon Wright - #BookReview

To the little girl gazing from the windows of her cosy attic nursery, the whole world seemed arranged for her entertainment. Six-year-old Maria Branwell's vantage points above the Penzance's busiest street afforded uninterrupted views of a most interesting place. Out front was the sea, with mysterious St Michael's Mount in the distance, sometimes crystal clear in the bright sunshine against a blue sky, sometimes wreathed in sea mists, the waters of the bay slate grey and restless. Not far from her door the small boats and tall ships arriving, or departing to trade or to fight or to fish. All the mercantile and military hullabaloo of a busy port in a seafaring nation. Directly below her window, merchants and redcoats stopped to discuss the French Revolution just over the horizon in one direction, American Independence an ocean away in another.

At long last, the untold story of the mysterious Mrs Bronte . They were from different lands, different classes, different worlds almost. The chances of Cornish gentlewoman Maria Branwell even meeting the poor Irish curate Patrick Bronte in Regency England, let alone falling passionately in love, were remote. Yet Maria and Patrick did meet, making a life together as devoted lovers and doting parents in the heartland of the industrial revolution. An unlikely romance and novel wedding were soon followed by the birth of six children. They included Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte , the most gifted literary siblings the world has ever known. Her children inherited her intelligence and wit and wrote masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 

Yet Maria has remained an enigma while the fame of her family spread across the world. It is time to bring her out of the shadows, along with her overlooked contribution to the Bronte genius. Untimely death stalked Maria as it was to stalk all her children. But first there was her fascinating life's story, told here for the first time by Sharon Wright. 

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I initially discovered the Bronte sisters in the school library when I first attended secondary school. Having fallen in love with their novels and back stories at such a tender age, they remain amongst my favourite books. Being a diminutive, bespectacled girl myself, I particularly identified with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and I love it still.

I have read several biographies of the Bronte sisters over the years, but this is the first that I have read that is specifically about their mother, Maria Branwell. I was fascinated to learn how this intelligent, well to do young woman from Cornwall ended her life as the impoverished wife to an eccentric clergyman in Yorkshire.

The author has clearly completed extensive research for this book and as a result has been able to produce this informative volume, and to demonstrate Maria's progression both geographically and socially. I very much enjoyed reading the letters that Maria wrote and sent to Patrick prior to their marriage. Sadly, these letters are one-sided as only Maria's letters survive but the author was able to ascertain information about Patrick based on Maria's responses.

Ms. Wright has written an informative, elucidating and illuminating book about the mother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte. It is a very accessible and easy to read biography which I very much enjoyed.

ISBN: 978 1526757609

Publisher: Pen & Sword History

About the Author:

Sharon Wright is an author, journalist and playwright. She has worked as a writer, editor and columnist for magazines, newspapers and websites including The Guardian, Daily Express, BBC, Glamour, Red, The Lady and New York Post. Her first book, Balloonomania Belles, was serialised in The Mail on Sunday and Sharon was a guest on BBC Woman's Hour. The revised and updated paperback The Lost History of the Lady Aeronauts was published in April 2021. She is also the author of critically acclaimed plays performed in London and Yorkshire.

(bio information courtesy of Pen & Sword)

(early reading copy courtesy of NetGalley)