The extraordinary creativity of the Brontë sisters, who between them wrote some of the most enduring fiction in the English language, continues to fascinate and intrigue modern readers. The tragedy of their early deaths adds poignancy to their novels, and in the popular imagination they have become mythic figures. And yet, as Patricia Ingham shows, they were fully engaged with the world around them, and their writing, from the juvenilia to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, reflects the preoccupations of the age in which they lived. Their novels, which so shocked their contemporaries, address the burning issues of the day: class, gender, race, religion, and mental disorders. As well as examining these connections, Ingham also shows how film and other media have reinterpreted the novels for the twenty-first century.

The Brontës is a lively, accessible, and critically topical exploration of the novels of the three sisters, and includes a chronology of the Brontës' websites, illustrations, a comprehensive index, and suggestions for further reading.