The Complete Poems

This volume constitutes the first major edition of Emily Brontë's complete poems to appear for half a century. 'A family in whom appears to run the instinct of song . . . rising, in that of Ellis, into an inspiration,' wrote the Athenaeum, reviewing Poems (1846) by the 'three brothers' Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Twenty-one of Emily Brontë's poems appeared in that volume, passionate songs of the spirit and of nature, and they were the only poems of hers to be published in her lifetime. For this new edition Janet Gezari has arranged the poems as nearly as possible in chronological order of composition, printing the published texts of the 1846 poems but otherwise taking the most recent manuscript versions. She also provides a scholarly introduction and extensive textual and contextual annotations to the poems.

About The Author

Emily Bronte lived from 1818 to 1848. Although she wrote only Wuthering Heights and about a dozen poms she is accepted as one of the most gifted writers ever. Perhaps the intensity of her writing grew out of the extraordinary pressures of her home life.

Emily’s mother died when she was three and she lived with her four sisters and one brother in a bleak, isolated Yorkshire village – Haworth. Her father doted on his only son, Branwell, and expected little from his daughters – they surprised him while Branwell wasted his life and died an alchoholic and drug addict. The girls suffered dreadfully at a cheap boarding school, the oldest two dying of malnutrition. Emily, Charlotte and Anne were brought home just in time but Emily never lost her terrible fear of institutions and of being closed in. The sisters later became governesses to help support Branwell, seen by their father as a future great artist. They also began to publish their writing, under male pen-names as there was much prejudice against women writers. Their first book, a collection of poetry, failed but Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, was highly acclaimed and is still widely read today.

Emily seldom left her home village yet produced one of the most powerful novels of the inner self ever written. She caught a cold at her brother’s funeral in 1848 and died a few months later.