Bronte in Love

When Charlotte Bronte died at the age of 38 in the Haworth parsonage where she had spent most of her life, her reputation as one of English literature's great novelists was already assured. In "Jane Eyre" she had allowed passion and romance to triumph over staid Victorian convention. She had written of fiery emotion, of heartbreak and of madness, but the greatest and at times the most tragic love story she never told was her own. It is this story that is now related in this compelling read. Here is the saga of a hopeless romantic, who naively believed true love could always conquer all. As a teenager she penned endless torrid romances and her hero was not a gentlemanly pillar of the community, but the Duke of Zamorna who had two wives, numerous mistresses and an illegitimate child. Brought vividly to life in these pages are the parallels with Charlotte's own life. By the time she was twenty-three she had rejected two proposals of marriage, one from a man she had known for only a couple of hours. Not for another fifteen turbulent years - marked by another proposal and two passionate affairs - were her childhood dreams finally extinguished. One June morning she walked into her father's church in Haworth and married a man she didn't love. It seemed she had at last found the one thing she wanted most of all, but within nine months both she and her unborn child were dead.