Moors & Manuscripts: The Brontë sisters

Hello you, welcome back to Hot History! I’m so excited to chat about the Brontë sisters today and my god we’re DEEPING it! From their education, family dynamic, life on the moors, time in Brussels, publications and untimely deaths, we’re looking at each sister and their works in total. PLUS to my greatest shock and surprise, the fact that Haworth is also home to the iconic op shop in Wild Child!! Next week will also be our first ‘hot take’ episode and the question is: Why are we so obsessed with the Nazis. If you have a hot take on this, I want to hear it so please email me at [email protected]! If you're wanting more Hot History content you can follow along on ⁠Instagram⁠ https://www.instagram.com/hothistoryclub/?hl=en, ⁠TikTok⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@hot.history?lang=en and ⁠YouTube⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@hot.history and of course, right here! Till next week, Ainslie x

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  This episode of Hot History is brought to you by the brand new film Wuthering Heights. Witness the greatest love story of all time in cinemas from February 12.

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  Do you think I am an automation, a machine without feeling? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong. I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. That for those of you who may not recognise it is the iconic prose of Jane Eyre to the ever annoying Mr Rochester, written by Charlotte Bronte and read by me, Ainslie Harvey, right here on Hot History, the podcast covering all the things in history

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  that you probably should know but don't. Now, guys, I am so excited for today's episode because we are deeping, as the quote suggests, the Bronte sisters. Now, I'm an absolute slut for both Victorian literature and anything a little kooky. So if you too get hot under the collar from morally grey men, windswept mores, near translucent pale skin and the shattering of Victorian conservatism for women, then strap yourself in for the lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte. Now, some of you may never have heard of them. Others may recognise their last name but have no idea who they really are, which, guys,

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  totally fine, okay? This is the podcast for things you probably should know but don't. So we hold zero judgement and expect zero pre-knowledge when you hit play. This is a safe space. We are going to break it all down. Now, while you may not have heard of the Bronte sisters by name, I reckon you may have heard of their works, not in the least, because Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is about to come out, it's literally everywhere. But in total, the Bronte sisters wrote seven books, the most famous of which are Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Grey.

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  All of which are widely regarded as some of the greatest pieces of 19th century literature and groundbreaking in their challenging Victorian ideas about women, desire, marriage, and morality. And all of which we will explore. But to know these sisters, we really have to start in one place. Horith. So let's set the scene and rewind it all the way back to 1816 in the village of Thornton, nestled amongst the Yorkshire moors in the heart of northern England.

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  There, we find a stone house, sturdy, cold. Smoke puffing out the chimneys like some angry beast is inside. The sound of the wind is screaming across the open moorland. It's full of heather, bilbree, and moss which sticks and snags on the bottom of your skirts. It's so thick. There's a graveyard right outside the front door and the house, a parsonage, with small steps, is granted to the man behind the genius of it all, the Reverend Patrick Bronte. So Patrick is born in 1777. He is Irish, ambitious, and highly educated,

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  working his way up from very, very humble origins in what was basically poverty, to become an Anglican clergyman, which, guys, this is no small feat in early 19th century England.

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  Now, this is a time, again, late Regency, early Georgian periods. You're defined by the Napoleonic wars, our rapid industrialisation, and this profound social shift from rural to urban life. And Patrick finds himself smack bang in the middle of this. And ultimately, he's able to rise up because he believes in two things. One, God and religion, and two, education, which we will talk about more later on. So, in the summer of eighteen twelve, Patrick is invited to examine the teaching at Woodhouse Grove School in Rawdon, Yorkshire,

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  where he meets a beautiful young woman by the name of Mariah, who was visiting her aunt, the same woman who was hosting Patrick while he was working there. Now, there's a lot of dispute here whether Patrick and Mariah actually fell in love and had a whirlwind romance, or if their union was one of companionship and shared values rather than passion. But either way, we know that they were married in a double wedding with their friends in December that same year. Now, Mariah is very, very different from Patrick. Firstly, she originally comes from Cornwall, which is a warm maritime part of England.

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  It is very, very, very different from the Yorkshire moorlands, which would go on to inspire her daughter's novels. Now, Mariah was also largely more gentle than her husband. Not that he was cruel or tyrannical, like he is so often made out to be in the Bronte story. But the real warmth and light and love of this family came from Mariah, as did the creativity. With Mariah enjoying practical crafts and storytelling, which was just as well, because she and Patrick would go on to have a whopping six children.

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  Now first came Mariah and Elizabeth in eighteen fourteen and eighteen fifteen, then Charlotte in eighteen sixteen, the only son Branwell in eighteen seventeen, Emily in eighteen eighteen, and finally Anne in eighteen twenty. So, let's do a headcount here. That is six children from eighteen fourteen to eighteen twenty, five of whom were back to back every single year. So Mariah was truly a super mum, guys. I mean, I had no children. So the idea of having six and five of those under five, that is wild to me.

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  Now, as a mother, Mariah was not only the primary caregiver to her children, but really became the moral guide of the household, which at this point was located in Howarth Village, their home, the parsonage, which was given to Patrick and by all accounts, Mariah locked, because she truly believed in a well-ordered home, even writing a book on domestic management from her time at Horworth, titled Practical Theology for the Use of Families. So really, guys, Mariah was the first author of the family with this book. Now, she was, of course, though, so much more than this. She was an intelligent, compassionate, well-read woman who encouraged all of this in her children,

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  teaching them to read from a young age, encouraging creative pursuits and finding beauty in the natural world around them. But this is not a story about a big, happy Victorian family. Because having six children, one after another, had taken a serious toll on Mariah's health and she eventually and very sadly died in eighteen twenty-one at age thirty-eight from uterine cancer.

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  Now this left the Bronte household in shambles with six very young children. And Patrick was out of his depth, so he calls upon Mariah's sister, Elizabeth Branwell, to help him bring up the children. Now she, like Mariah, came from Cornwall, and unlike the stories of evil aunts and devious stepmothers, she was sublime. Aunt Branwell, as she was known, taught the children arithmetic, the alphabet, um, how to sew, and she really encouraged discussion from her magazines, which she would read aloud to the children, who would then deliver their various takes.

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  All in all, she was a generous person who dedicated her life to her nieces and nephews, neither marrying nor ever returning to Cornwall. But Elizabeth and Patrick believed in education outside the home, and as such, enrolled the four eldest girls, so that's Mariah, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily, in the clergy daughters' school at Cowan Bridge. Now if you're thinking, fabulous, the girls are off to have a wild child, St. Trinian's-esque boarding school poppy more experience, you are wrong.

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  Cowan Bridge was renowned for its poor food, its coldness, its harsh discipline, the effects of which Mariah and Elizabeth were taken out of school after only a year and then both went on to die in eighteen twenty-five from tuberculosis, which many believe was due to the harsh conditions and little priority of their students' health at Cowan Bridge. Charlotte, now the eldest surviving Bronte sister, had lost her mother and her two elder sisters in the span of four years, and was traumatised by their losses and the role that Cowan Bridge played, so much so that she modelled Lowood School in her novel Jane Eyre off of Cowan Bridge.

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  Now, a year after their sisters' deaths, Charlotte and Emily left the school and returned to Howarth. Now, guys, Howarth...

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  Is not only important to our story, but definitively central. And as I said in the opening, not only because it is the place the family were raised, but for its particular geography. The important thing to know here is that Haworth is nestled in West Yorkshire in northern England. And it sits in what is known as the Pennine Hills. I love how this is like going from hot history to like gorgeous geography or something. But anyway, the Pennine Hills are a long chain of hills that run down the middle of northern England, basically like a backbone. They're not peaks or alpine mountains, but more of like rolling high ground.

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  There's exposed ridges, all of which create moorlands. Now, the moors in every single one of the Brontes' stories is truly a character of its own, especially in Wuthering Heights. And what you find on the moors are wide, empty landscapes, like literally almost as far as the eye can see. There is dense, harsh weather, uh, from wind to rain to intense southern fog. There's peat bogs and heather, which makes it really dangerous, very few trees. Like all in all, living on the moors is a deep, deep form of isolation. It is literally like introvert heaven.

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  And it was quite literally the Brontes' backyard. And they spent hours each day among them. They walked the moors every day in all kinds of weather and learned the paths and geography off by heart. And again, we'll talk about this more when we get to Emily in a little bit. But for now, what we need to know is that the moors are their backyard and really their lives. So coming back from Cowan Bridge to the moors must have been like heaven. But that's certainly not the way they felt about life at Haworth at large. The freedom and vastness of the moors also reflected life in Howarth Village,

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  which was isolated, it was industrial and ultimately just like boring for the young family. And I don't mean bored in the nothing to do gym scrolling on the 40 page for hours an hour sense. It's the isolated, um, understimulated, nowhere to go sense of boredom, which turns out for the Brontes is the best kind because it went on to fuel their intense imaginations. Now Charlotte and Branwell in particular really struggled with the confinement and began inventing worlds and stories to pass the time, even making up an entire fictional

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  kingdom, including the imaginary African kingdom of Glass Town and then the Empire of Anglia. Emily and Anne too created Gondal, an island continent in the North Pacific ruled by a woman. The children also pursued their creativity with the 12 wooden soldiers that Patrick gave to Branwell, which they dubbed the young men, giving each of them names and um, backstories and basically just firing their imaginations within the confines of life at Howarth. Then there were Tabby's tales. Now guys, while Patrick often was

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  out and Aunt Branwell needed help, right? So the Brontes decided to get a maid. Her name was Tabby. She was a local girl, um, and she was central to really relieving the children's boredom in their early years by recounting local legends in her Yorkshire dialect. Now, together with Aunt Branwell, Tabby and their father, um, who encouraged each of their education passionately, the four Bronte siblings spent their days reading obsessively, debating politics, religion and art and writing.

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  Constantly, guys. These siblings were always scribbling on pages and jotting down thoughts in between their time on the mors. And in reflection, it really was this forced confinement at Haworth which kicked off the creative journey for each of these siblings. But Patrick wasn't happy with his kids only receiving an informal education. And while Branwell, as the son, could go on to a traditional boys' school, Charlotte, Emily and Anne were another thing entirely. Now, you see, education for women, and indeed the role of women in early 19th century England, it's important to remember, is minuscule. The education they do receive is for upper and middle-class girls,

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  who were taught skills designed to make them charming and refined wives, not intellectual and accomplished women.

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  But Patrick wasn't having a bar of it. Truly, I, I don't think he believed in anything more than the power of education, including God, and he was like literally irreverent. So this was so important to him, and it was entirely revolutionary, not just his view on women's education, but his view on education more broadly has always been a topic of discussions between front-end fans. According to Patrick, education was not just practical, but morally essential. And he encouraged all of his children to challenge each other and his views,

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  subscribing to newsletters and papers for his children and often egging them on to debate harder. In fact, there's a story, we don't actually know if this is real or not, but I like it, so I'm gonna tell it, where Patrick fired a pistol indoors to show his children not to be frightened easily. Whether true or not, it does really seem to capture his attitude towards learning and curiosity, where strength came through exposure, not sheltering. He firmly believed this, and it was this attitude which saw a 14-year-old Charlotte enrolled in the School of Miss Ulla in Roedhead.

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  Right now, the year is eighteen thirty-one. And while Patrick had come up in the world with the beautiful parsonage at Howarth, he was by no means wealthy and could have sent Charlotte to a less expensive school, but refused to compromise on quality. And it paid off, guys. Charlotte was really happy there. She studied well. She made many lifelong friends. Uh, she expanded her mind. And, and three years later, she's offered a position as Miss Rose's assistant. Her new job here encouraged Patrick to send Emily to school there, and Charlotte's salary largely covered part of Emily's tuition. But she did not settle in like Charlotte did.

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  At seventeen, it was the first time Emily had left Howarth since Cowenbridge. After three months, her health seemed to decline, and she had to be taken home to the parsonage with Anne taking her place and staying on until Christmas of eighteen thirty-seven. Now, during this time, I will talk about Branwell for a little, but snooze. Anyway, let's catch up with Branwell. What's he doing? He is a promising art student. Uh, and he writes a letter to the Royal Academy of Art in London to present several of his drawings to them. All in all, the Bronte siblings are at this stage shaping up to be like heavily educated, creative young people. But three of them were women, and for lack of a fortune,

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  they all reached an age where the options available to them were marriage or work. Which is why Charlotte stayed on at Miss Wooler's school, pursuing her professional career as a teacher. Now, Charlotte had a number of posts as both a teacher and governess, but often found she was charged with the same kind of young woman.

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  The witty, rebellious, full of life, and in some cases incredibly difficult to teach kind. Anne, too, became a governess and worked for a Mrs. Ingham, and then the aptly-named Mrs. Robinson at Thorpe Green Hall, New York, where she also obtained employment for her brother in a futile attempt to stabilise him. More on that later. But the reality of life as a governess, at least in the Brontë's case, was volatile. Often not staying long with each family, um, their employment sometimes lasted for months or a single season, which really gave Charlotte an idea.

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  Recognising her and her sisters' intellect as above those in Howarth, which, not a, like, racy, dramatic statement, they were more educated. Charlotte thought that they could create a school for young girls in the parsonage where their Sunday School classes took place. As part of their curriculum, French language study would be essential. So Charlotte decided that an international trip to upskill in their foreign languages was essential. Now, again, if you're going to learn French, Paris is probably the best destination for you. Again, obvious. But it wasn't picked thanks to the whole situation with the Napoleonic Wars, et cetera, et cetera.

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  And instead, Brussels was decided as the best location for the sisters to travel to and begin their, like, international study abroad programme. So, in February 1842, Charlotte and Emily, accompanied by their father and sponsored with funds from Aunt Branwell, arrived in Brussels. Once there, they enrolled at Monsieur and Madame Heger's boarding school and showed exceptional intelligence from the get-go. Now, Madame Claire Heger founded and directed the school with her husband, Constantine, and he had the responsibility for the higher French classes, which the Brontë sisters took. And he is very important.

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  For us to look at in Charlotte's life. Which again, we'll get to soon in more detail, I promise. I'm just saying we'll get to it more because it's so juicy. We need to go chronological, guys. All you need to know for now is that Constantine is largely regarded as a genius. And in only six months, both sisters were writing literary and philosophical essays in an advanced level of French. So much so that Madame Haggas suggested they stay at the boarding school free of charge in return for giving some lessons. Now, they agree hesitantly and weren't particularly good at it. Not because they lacked the talent, um, but they really lacked the passion.

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  And when news reached them that poor Aunt Branwell had died, they returned once again to Howarth. So let's do a quick age check here. By October 1842, when the girls come home, Charlotte's 26, Emily's 24, and Anne is 22. And life at Howarth post Aunt Branwell is different. On one hand, the girls were each in a better position in life. Aunt Branwell actually left them, like all of her worldly goods, including her small fortune, in equal shares to her three nieces and another cousin. And this money allowed the Brontes to clear any debts they had and have a nice little nest egg for their school.

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  But for the Bronte men, things were bleak. Patrick lost his sight and Branwell fell into a rapid decline, featuring much drama, drunkenness and delirium. Which his reputation, like ultimately, was so devastated that the school project ended up failing because the girls had the same last name as him. And I promise, we're about to deep dive into each of the sisters and their works individually. But I do think it's important to talk about them like as a collective here first because their relationship as sisters and the dynamics of that family are so unique.

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  So their isolation in Howarth and within life at the rectory meant they had to cling to one another. Again, they've lost their mother, they've lost their two elder sisters, which banded them together in this deep, like, trauma bond, which is then amplified by the isolation of Howarth.

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  Which is all kind of symbolically linked to the moors. Like it's, you see how complex their novels are when you look at their own kind of dynamics. Now, while close, they were like any other kind of siblings with their own dynamics between one another, often having tiffs and tantrums and as their literary skills progressed, they were even plagued by jealousy.

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  So, let's start with Charlotte. Now, she was close with her brother Branwell and had a close friend, Ellen Nussey, who was outside the family, something which Anne and Emily didn't really develop. Now, in terms of her sisters, she was closest to Emily and genuinely did admire her literary work, even calling her a giant. But their differing personalities often led to some conflict. But again, for the most part, like they matched pretty well. Charlotte and Anne, however, did not get along so well with Charlotte really taking on the role,

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  which again, you can see why, of mother and educator to her younger sister. Um, and again, if not so much in practice, then very much in discipline, which often led to tension between them. Now, there's also the belief that Charlotte may have actually been jealous of Anne's talents initially. But again, as time passed, these two did become close, but there was early beef. As for Emily and Anne, however, these two are largely remembered as having the closest bond. And they really did share this exceptionally deep,

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  almost foreign to everybody else lifelong bond, which is often described as a calm companionship and quiet refuge. Something which made their time apart even more difficult, especially for Emily, who was constantly homesick. Which is likely why only Charlotte returned to Brussels after they like sorted their affairs following Aunt Brianwell's death. Although guys, this wasn't the only reason Charlotte went alone. But first, before we get to the simmering hot tea, a word from today's sponsor.

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  this adaptation of Emily's famous classical Gothic novel is going to make everyone come undone. And guys, it's super timely with Valentine's Day tomorrow. So make sure to grab your lover or gals, or perhaps even your toxic childhood best friend, and get your tickets to see Wuthering Heights exclusively in cinemas right now. Okay, guys, so we are picking up in January 1843 and have finally reached the stage. We are going to be deeping the lives of each sister and we are starting with Charlotte.

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  Now, Charlotte Bronte is like a, like a Taylor Swift figure. She is the most famous Bronte sister, she produced the most work, was deeply ambitious and in many ways is just like the classic eldest daughter, which I think I have a pretty good idea on when I tell you she is a classic eldest daughter. Firstly, she's a natural leader, right? Who was really self-questioning, she's morally serious. Uh, thanks to her role as the eldest surviving sibling and as a daughter of a churchman. And on the other hand, she's also like...

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  Desperately, desperately pining for something greater for her life. All of which causes this really deep tension and ongoing anxiety. Because she's stuck between wanting and craving independence, but also holding a deep belief in self-control and moral discipline and, and being the glue which holds her family together. So Charlotte Bronte is this tinderbox, really. Like, like you have that laid with all of this innate creative genius and intellectual acumen, all of which is set against the background of Victorian England, where the roles for women

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  were so conservative and so limited and so suffocating. It's like, it's genuinely like she almost wants to like stick her head in her own chest and like rip her heart out and look at it, which like is literally the universal experience of eldest daughters everywhere, summed up best by herself, I think, anyway. When she said, "I feel monotony and death to be almost the same." Now, I think the best example of just how desperate and determined for a bigger life she was is in their first trip to Brussels to upskilling language for their school.

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  Again, we've already kind of covered this, but Charlotte literally organised everything for that trip, from the curriculum to the finances to the travel. And I love this piece that she wrote to her aunt, asking for the money to go. And in here, she says, "If this advantage were allowed us, it would be the making of us for life. Papa will perhaps think it is a wild and ambitious scheme, but whoever rose in the world without ambition. When he left Ireland to go to Cambridge University, he was as ambitious as I am now.

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  I want us all to go on. I know we have talents and I want them to be turned to account."

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  Like, that is, that is so deeply, deeply ambitious, even for today. And I think here we just see how truly self-assured she was and how radical, right? And we look back at the Brontës from the retrospective now and think like, wow, how small and isolated their world was, both in geography and society. Again, these are young unmarried women, Victorian England, right? But they were, like especially Charlotte, but really all of them, but especially Charlotte in this context, right? Groundbreaking.

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  And for all of us Aussies, this is what I always think of when I think of the Brontës. For all of us Aussies who struggle with tall poppy syndrome. And for all the international listeners who don't know what that means. It's basically where, um, like one person is doing really well, standing up above the others, and perhaps they've had a big success, or they think that something big is coming for them. We, as a society, always try and cut that person down, either back in line with the rest of the poppies, back in line with everyone else, or beneath them, because we think that that ambition is arrogance. And you look at Charlotte's quote right here, right? "I want us all to go on.

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  I know we have talents and I want them to be turned to account." That is so incredibly ambitious. And again, you put this in the context of eighteen forties, rural Victorian England. And it is revolutionary to see a young unmarried woman speaking like this, which I think is just like such a testament to her belief that education and knowledge, again, everything that Brontës do is underpinned by this deep, like, love, um, of learning and curiosity.

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  So her belief that education and knowledge can get you anywhere.

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  Speaking of which, we know that Charlotte had a sporadic education at different schools, which she then taught at while also doing stints like as a governess. None of this is new, we've already covered this. She really didn't like any of that work, um, which again, I think is why she really spent much of her early adulthood trying and constantly failing to escape house. And I think that's really one of the big contributing factors, her trying to find purpose. Um, to, to go for this trip, right, to start their school. It's her chance to go somewhere and to do something and she fucking loves it.

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  Charlotte described Brussels as her promised land. And she notes that living there is little more than half as dear, like as inexpensive, as it is in England and the facilities for education are equal or superior to any other place in Europe.

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  So finally, after all of these years, Charlotte is getting her wild child Poppy Moore, Abbey Mount-esque boarding school experience. P S, quick tangent here, Howarth, the Bronte village, like famous as, as like the beating heart of Bronte land. It's where they filmed all of the wild child village scenes, the op shop, the hair salon. All filmed in Howarth, so there you go. Um, okay, so she's finally having her wild child experience in Brussels. Um, but not just because the education is great and she likes the place. And she does, at the school, she meets, you know, friends, et cetera, she keeps for life.

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  But she also meets the director of the school's husband, Monsieur Constantine Heger. Guys, he's brilliant, he's broad, he's charismatic, volatile. I see them hot and totally unavailable. They're literally at his wife's school. He was her teacher and the intellectual stimulation that he provided her, paired with the independence for the first time in her life, made him almost mythical to her. And that intellectual stimulation soon turned a motive for Charlotte, who became obsessed with him.

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  His French classes became the highlight of her week. Her essays reviewed by him became emblazoned with handsome heroes and not so subtle declarations of affection. But he was married with children and again, he's a teacher. Now, the history books will show that this was firmly a one-sided relationship in the romantic sense. But Hergé deeply valued Charlotte intellectually. And thought that she had a burning talent, which again, he like, did truly admire. And this often put them in back and forth debates and conversations, teasing out

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  elements of language and literature. So I don't think that we can blame the sheltered English country girl for thinking he was fascinating and perhaps even thinking his affections were returned.

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  For in eighteen forty-three, the January, where Aunt Branwell's passing, like it had all been managed. Um, you know, Emily and Charlotte, like I said, they're given the invitation to come back to the school. Emily refuses, she doesn't want to leave house, but Charlotte decides to return. Because she has this thought of Monsieur Hergé pulling her back to Brussels. And again, I don't think she's wrong for thinking that them being together could be a possibility, right?

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  But her second trip was not like the first.

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  Charlotte craved his approval intensely. And while he was more than happy to provide intellectual support as her teacher, he completely withdrew from her emotionally as his colleague, right? This devastated Charlotte. And as time passed, she saw less and less of her tutor and largely suspected it was because his wife was keeping them apart out of jealousy. Again, this may be true, um, it may not be true, but it's also just highly likely that Hergé felt her attachment, like becoming emotional was too much and distanced himself for the sake of his marriage and children.

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  Now, you may be thinking. David, there's no way. This sounds like a book talk adaptation, a bit love hypothesis meets Benedict Bridgerton, Sophie Beck, Across the Social Divide, style thing. But there is zero evidence that Higuer encouraged a romantic bond with Charlotte Bronte. So when Charlotte returned to Howarth at the end of 1843, after doing her teaching stint in Brussels, baby's heartbroken. She tried to rekindle her relationship with Higuer in a series of letters in which she begged for the encouragement he gave her in the early days in Brussels.

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  Now, he was a gentleman, so he did reply occasionally with bracing advice. But she begged him for more letters and he didn't reply. She grew more and more desperate, lonely and heartbroken, writing more intensely, even saying, "Day and night, I find neither rest nor peace. If I sleep, I'm disturbed by tormenting dreams in which I see you."

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  I got the ick. Like, I'm freaked out. And I don't blame Higuer for also being freaked out. And he wrote her, um, basically saying like, hey, let's like, I think this is like, reached its course and like, basically just ghosted her. Again, whether he was overcome and like, trying to like, rid of the evidence, or he just simply got the ick, like, he completely ripped these letters up. And they were saved actually by his wife from the bin and meticulously glued back together. Um, and it wasn't until like, well, well on that we actually understood the depth of Charlotte's feelings for him from these letters.

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  But basically, she's heartbroken, she's sending all these texts, he's ghosting her, being like, this is too much, and the situation ship ended. Now, Brussels, Higuer, the letters, the rejection, the ghosting. It is perhaps the single most important thing to happen to Charlotte Bronte. And I know it's like,

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  Seriously, surely the most important thing that's happening to her is not a man. And it's not about him, guys. It's not about him. It's about his rejection and how it changed and inspired and pushed her forward. It was really the emotional kick in the bum that she needed to get to fucking work, to lock in, and my god, guys, does she. Because in the midst of her sadness, she begins submitting stories and poems, and while initially knocked back, she would not be discouraged. Again, this is Charlotte Bronte. She is an eldest daughter. Nothing will keep her down.

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  She is determined to make a success of her writing, and fate intervenes, guys. When one day, in autumn, 1845, she's been a little nosey, and she notices Emily's small notebook lying open in the drawer near her. So what does she do? She's a classic gossip girl. She reads it. And she is dazzled by the beauty of these poems, and it gave her an idea. A joint publication of all three Bronte sisters' works. Now, Anne was easy to win over, but Emily, like understandably, fucking furious. Her sister has gone and read her work.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  It took her several hours to calm down, several days to agree, and even still, she was like testy. But eventually, Charlotte writes nineteen poems, and Anne and Emily write twenty-one. And with their finished collection, Charlotte goes about looking for a publisher. And again, in lieu of her starting a book talk account and then getting some like ludicrous literary deal. She's got to do it the old fashioned way. So she writes to the directors of one of her favourite magazines. And they tell her to reach out to A Lot and Jones, a small publishing house in London. She reaches out, she goes, guys, I got some hot shit for you. And they go, okay, we'll read it.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  They read it, they're impressed, they agree to publish the combined works under pseudonyms. And so the poems of Kira, Ellis and Acton Bell went out into the world again. Kira, Charlotte, Ellis, Emily, Acton and Bell Bronte. But guys,

• 42:50Speaker 00

  it was a total flop. It sold three copies, one of which was to a man named Frederick Anok, who loved their work so much, he requested an autograph, like, kind of stalkery back then, but anyway. As such, he obtained the only document carrying the three authors' signatures. Imagine what he could have sold it on eBay for today. But nevertheless, the girls were published and the thrill of it spurred each of them on to write their own novels. Oh, I'm getting so excited. Okay. Charlotte's first novel was called The Professor. But this wasn't published until after her death, so first written, last published.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  And it drew on her experience in Brussels by following William Crimsworth, an Englishman seeking independence through work and self-discipline abroad. Oh my God, it sounds familiar. This novel is written from the male point of view and is considered largely her weakest piece of work. Again, this is the first she has written, okay, like, let's calm down. But nonetheless, it did start her journey writing about what became her real consistent themes. Dignity, autonomy and the value of work. But The Professor was not Charlotte's first published novel. That honour goes to Jane Eyre,

• 44:17Speaker 00

  which is when we come back to Monsieur Haggard. Now, guys, it is time to clock the fuck in.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  It is eighteen forty-seven. The Bronte sisters are hard at work. And Charlotte, who is still broken-hearted by her former tutor's rejection, decides to do something about it. And so she began writing her masterpiece off of him.

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  Jane Eyre follows Jane, an orphan, Paul, socially marginalized woman, who is sent from the oppressive Lowood School, hello Cowan Bridge, to become a governess at a vast English mansion called Thornfield Hall. There, she meets her broad, brooding, volatile, toxic employer, Mr Rochester, and the two fall in love. But just as the wedding is about to take place, it is stopped

• 45:34Speaker 00

  by the revelation that his wife is alive, insane, and hidden up in the attic.

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  He tries to have her as his mistress, but she refuses on moral grounds, never flailing against her values. She flees, she inherits a fortune, she hears that Thornfield's been burnt down. She returns, called across the moors by the, the voice of Rochester, and she finds that the former imperious man is blind. He's humbled. His wife, who started the fire, is dead. And she marries him.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  The tea, guys, it is a true masterpiece of Gothic literature. And Charlotte used every ounce of that heartbreak from her gear, but struggles, right? To, to convey her struggles, sorry, with independence, morality, ambition, her own childhood. She uses that to funnel power and groundbreaking prose into this novel.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  And it was and still is absolutely revolutionary. Right, Charlotte managed to balance deep passion with this strict moral compass, refusing to make Jane submissive or meek. She is neither of those things. In doing so, she challenges the limited roles for Victorian women. And only reunites the lovers at the end of the story when they are equals. Right, this is super important. Jane has gained confidence and a fortune. While Rochester has gained humility and lost his sight and significant funds. It is only through this process of ascension and fall, add and detract, that equality between them can be achieved.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Something that wasn't even thought of in Victorian relationships, the idea of being equal. And again, this is from the woman who at this stage in her life, had never been in a relationship aside from the one-sided affection she had for Mr. Hegel, who is like without question or doubt the inspiration for Mr. Rochester. So again, this is published in eighteen forty-seven under her pseudonym Curabel. And it found overwhelming sale successes. Um, but was largely branded at the time as anti-Christian. I'm going to read some reviews to you guys. One of them said,

• 48:23Speaker 00

  "Would you not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code, human and divine, and fostered rebellion at home is the same which has also written Jane Eyre?"

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Basically calling Charlotte the devil incarnate. And honestly, at the time, it was so revolutionary that this kind of reaction is like kind of justified. It was basically smut.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  And one review said, "It is a book to make the pulses gallop and the heart beat and to fill the eyes with tears." Another brandished saying, "There is not a single natural character throughout the work," in reference to the role of women throughout.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  But guys, where night follows day like moth to a flame, people love scandalous shit, especially, especially the Victorians. And many reviewed Jane Eyre with excitement, calling it an extraordinary book. The People's Journal, the People's Journal, sorry. Even said, "The reader never tires, never sleeps. An irresistible energy bears him onward from first to last."

• 49:51Speaker 00

  The mixed reviews and calls of immorality only made it sell all the more, setting Charlotte up to be one of, if not the, most successful authors of the 19th century. At least, probably the most important for women.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  A little anecdote for you. "I always find gorgeously ironic and sublimely funny." She published under her pseudonym. And the book was so racy and scandalous and Victorian smart that the Indicator publication wrote, "We doubt not it will soon cease to be a secret. But on one assertion, we are willing to risk our entire critical reputation." That this is, that no woman wrote it.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  L.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  L. If only they knew it was a little Victorian, rural, Howarth-based,

• 50:59Speaker 00

  like eldest daughter, sitting up on the moors going, "Love you, bye." And in the years that followed, this spurred Charlotte on. She continued to write. She wrote the most of her sisters. So she wrote Shirley in eighteen forty nine, which was set during industrial unrest in Yorkshire, following two contrasting female characters, often interpreted as Charlotte and Emily. Then she wrote Valette in eighteen fifty three, which follows the female protagonist as she travels from England to the fictional city of Valette to teach at a girls' school where she is drawn into adventures and romance. Spoiler alert, guys, it's Brussels. Now we're gonna put a pin in Charlotte

• 51:44Speaker 00

  and talk instead about Emily Bronte. Emily is one of the most fascinating, elusive writers, that she's like almost a character. Like, if Charlotte is Hermione Granger, Emily is a mix between Luna Lovegood and Snape, right? She's like a naturalist. She's a little kooky. She loves her own company. She's very much in her own head. She's deeply introverted and genuinely withers away when she is removed from Howarth and the Moors. Nearly every single time she leaves home, she falls ill or depressed or just like becomes a complete and total shell of herself, to the point where like her very soul and heart

• 52:29Speaker 00

  and mind and spirit come from the Moors. She is so innately tied to her environment that the Moors themselves become a character in her work. This is true for all the sisters, but no, like, no one feels this as deeply as Emily. So she's very different from Charlotte, right? She craves recognition and wider experience. Emily is on the total other end of the spectrum and like actually shows a deep and consistent resistance to life beyond her world. Now, we know she had a similar education to her sisters,

• 53:14Speaker 00

  but where they went out and got jobs as governesses, Emily tried and failed. She hated being away. She found the work of a governess to be taxing and lacked any real passion for it. Um, so she tried teaching in a more professional sense, but again, couldn't be away from her home and the moors for long. Um, stating later on her final teaching position, that I would have died if I had not been allowed home.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Now, this surprises me and probably surprises you too, that she agreed to go with Charlotte to Brussels in eighteen forty-two.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  But Diva, this isn't just away from Howarth, that's away from England. And for someone plagued with homesickness, literally saying they think they may die if they're gone for too long, like, it's a risky endeavour. But still, I think Emily realised the opportunity for her education, which again, she valued just as much as Charlotte. But where her sister tried really hard to be accepted and pleasant, Emily did neither. She didn't give a fuck. Yeah, she was described as monosyllabic for her lack of conversation.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  She was mocked by the other students for her refusal to adopt Belgian fashions with a fellow student recording. I simply disliked her from the first, her tallish, ungainly, ill-dressed figure. Always answered our jokes with, I wish to be as God made me.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  I imagine that's pretty frustrating when you're trying to bully someone and they're like, I don't give a fuck, whatever, that's how I am. And that is Emily Bruntaine in a nutshell, right? She is totally self-assured, she is totally insular, and she is entirely unbothered by people. She was really just there to learn, right? And my God, she did that. Hegel observed her intellect was something even higher than Charlotte's, stating, she should have been a man, a great navigator. Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old.

• 55:40Speaker 00

  Well, Higuer, thank God she wasn't a man. And as a man, please inform us all what we remember you for.

• 55:51Speaker 00

  Nothing. So, we're glad that she's a woman. Thank you. Now, in Brussels, Emily liked Charlotte, mastered French. She wrote compelling essays. She developed her German. And she actually became a really competent pianist and a not-so competent teacher. One family even saying they disliked her immensely. Um, but guys, while she was here, she did manage to make one friend in a sixteen-year-old student who she gifted a signed drawing and wrote letters to later in her life. So she made one friend in this world outside her family. Love that for her.

• 56:33Speaker 00

  Now, as we know, Aunt Branwell died and they returned to Howarth. And Emily joined Charlotte in trying to open their school. Again, this failed. Thanks a lot, Branwell. You're such a dick. Um, and to be honest, given the job that she did in Brussels, like, I'm not really sure this was a bad thing. These women were not meant to be teachers. During this time, Emily refused to be idle, though. She wrote prolifically, from poems to prose. She was constantly scratching down ideas after her long days on the moors. And as we know, Charlotte found her book and they all decided to publish the poems

• 57:16Speaker 00

  with Emily acting as, um, Elliot Bell, right? We know all of this.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  But while the poems were being written, she's working on something else. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights. That's right, Charlotte wrote four. Anne Spoilerler wrote two. Wuthering Heights is the only work produced by Emily Bronte. It was published the same year as Charlotte's Jane Eyre, eighteen forty-seven. And follows childhood friends turned almost lovers, but not really, but kind of enemies, but kind of not. Like it's so, so toxic. Anyway, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff,

• 58:08Speaker 00

  whose toxicity and passion like ultimately becomes the thing that kills them all. It is dark, it is doomed, it is, it is supernatural, it is Gothic literature at its finest. And today is actually categorised as black romanticism. So if Jane Eyre was groundbreaking, Wuthering Heights was earth shattering and conservative Victorian society lost their fucking minds.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  They, they, they complained about the novel's unusual structure, its violence, its passion, its darkness, which led to only one possibility. Had to be written by a man. One review called it "A tale of unchecked primal passions, replete with savage cruelty and outright barbarism." The examiner wrote, "The people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequence, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer."

• 59:24Speaker 00

  So, it's a complex novel, still today. And given its vulnerability and depth, Emily wished to remain under her pseudonym for life. But fate had other plans. A year after the publication of her Gothic masterpiece, their brother Branwell died of tuberculosis. Emily attended the funeral and a week later caught a severe cold that quickly developed into tuberculosis. Charlotte tried her absolute hardest to get her to see a doctor. She pretty much outright refused and Charlotte actually writes to us here saying, "She grows daily weaker." "The physician's opinion was expressed too obscurely to be of use.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  He sent some medicine which she would not take." At noon, Emily's condition had actually worsened so much um with her last audible words to Charlotte, "If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now." So she was like, she knew she was on death's door. But it was too late, guys. She died that afternoon aged thirty and was buried in Howarth just off the moors, where she spent the majority of her life and was returned dust to dust. So Emily has passed and we are now going to jump to the last Bronte sister, Anne.

• 1:00:52Speaker 00

  The sister who is overshadowed by Charlotte's popularity and treated as mid in comparison to Emily's mythic intensity, but is really now recognised as a serious realist who unlike her sisters, did not romanticise suffering or toxicity, she documented it. So as the youngest Bronte sister and sibling, Anne grew up primarily as the observer rather than the leader, right? She followed her brother and sisters around Howarth with, as we said already, particularly closeness to Emily.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Now, growing up, and I feel this is important to note, Anne shared a room with Aunt Branwell, which largely influenced her personality and beliefs and really made her the favourite. So Ellen O'See, one of Charlotte's friends, went on to say of Anne, "Dear gentle Anne was quite different in appearance from the others and she was her aunt's favourite. Her hair was a very pretty light brown and fell on her neck in graceful curls. She had lovely violet blue eyes, fine pencilled eyebrows and a clear, almost transparent complexion."

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  In fact, of the three sisters, Anne is largely considered the most conventionally attractive, with that subdued porcelain skin, looks ever so slightly unwell vibe that drove the Victorians wild, right? Her manners too were seen as more refined, modest and gentle than the ambitious Emily, um, sorry, the ambitious Charlotte or the inward Emily. And the assumption of this would be that Anne was more social and easily accepted. But that is not the case. When Charlotte was teaching at Rowhead and Emily came as a student but didn't like it.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  She missed the moors, she went home, blah, blah, blah, and took her place. Leaving Howarth for the very first time at fifteen years old. So, all four of her elder sisters who went to Cowan Bridge, right, left, and then Emily and Charlotte went to Rowhead. But the first time Anne ever leaves Howarth, she's fifteen. And when she arrived, she didn't make a lot of friends. Um, and instead, much like Emily, really just focused on her education. Perhaps that was like the real thing, the close bond between them, right? They felt satisfied in each other, having each other for life, they didn't need anybody else. But she did stay at this school for two years, returning home only during the Christmas and summer holidays

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  and eventually returning permanently, um, after briefly falling ill. Now, when she recovered, she was nineteen, was really fit with the skills to become a teacher and with no desires to marry and not wanting to work at the school, she found work in April eighteen thirty-nine as a governess. She disliked it and was let go after nine months, returning to Howarth where she met her father's new curate, William Waitman. Now, guys, William was twenty-five. He is handsome, popular, and had an outgoing and flirtatious personality.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  So much so, that upon learning that none of the Bronte sisters had ever received a Valentine's card, god dash it, can you imagine? He wrote cards and poems to all three of them. It has largely been suggested that Anne fell in love with young William, who, R I P, suddenly died of cholera in eighteen forty-two. With a poem she wrote to him detailing, "I will mourn the lovely one." Now, we don't actually know if there was a romantic connection between these two, but I like the idea of this like golden retriever energy, beautiful man for the young, like inward, subdued Anne.

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  Cute. Someone like write a-

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  Cute book on it, please.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  But Anne couldn't stay at Haworth, um, so she found another role as a governess, this time at Thorpe Green Hall for the Robinson family. Now, we did briefly mention this and we're gonna get into it a bit more because there is some serious tea that goes down here. So she had four charges under her here, who all became lifelong friends, and she enjoyed her work, travelling with the family to Scarborough, which she loved. They were good to her, and she is the only Bronte sister who made a success of her work as a governess. Um, but when she stuck her neck out for her brother, again, Branwell, yuck, why are you ruining everything? Things went downhill.

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  So, the thing about Branwell, ugh, we're talking about him again. He hit some troubles and the Robinson's youngest son, who was um, under Anne's kind of charge, was getting too old. And so she arranged for Branwell to be his tutor. It was all going okay, guys, for about two and a half years. Um, things were fine, everybody was learning, living harmoniously, until Branwell's behaviour grew increasingly erratic and he fell in love with his employer's wife aptly named Mrs. Robinson. Anne resigned upon discovering this with no explanation,

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  and Branwell was eventually dismissed soon after, which is why the Bronte sisters were back in Haworth in 1845 to publish their poems again. Anne is Acton Bell, um, and her time at Thorpe Green Hall went on to inspire something else in her, her first novel. Also, again, published in 1847, the big year for the Brontes, you had Charlotte's Joan Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights. We also had Anne's Agnes Grey. And it really is an autobiographical novel, which follows a clergyman's daughter who became a governess to support her family after financial ruin. That's obviously not fact, but like, again, you get the point.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  In her post, Agnes Gray faces harsh cruel treatment from wealthy, neglectful employers and unruly children, highlighting the miserable life of Victorian governesses. Again, not necessarily her experience as such, but leaning on her observations of how this could be the case. In the end, Agnes Gray perseveres with dignity, eventually finding love with a kind, curate, Mr. Weston. Could this be her dream with Mr. Wakeman, the lovely one she spoke of?

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  Maybe. Again, I like to envision this life for Anne where her and William survive and live in this like supportive, loving, non-Victorian marriage. But alas, like I said, this is not a happy Victorian story. So Agnes Gray was published, and it was actually published in tandem with Wuthering Heights, like in the same volume, and is praised for its refusal to dramatise suffering. Again, I said this a little while ago, right? Instead of dramatising or romanticising, she just documents. So instead of presenting suffering as a normal, you know, normalised injustice endured quietly

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  by countless women to make comment on the realities of life for women in Victorian society, she doesn't dramatise this, she just shows it as fact. And while modern readers recognise this realism as intentional and radical, critics at the time found the novel dull, especially in comparison to Emily's Wuthering Heights. But Anne was not discouraged, writing what many believed to be her masterpiece and one of the most daring novels of Victorian era the following year, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This novel tells the story of Helen Huntingdon, a woman who leaves her abusive, alcoholic

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  husband and supports herself through painting while protecting her young son.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  Tale as old as time, right? This plot alone was shocking. As Victorian law gave husbands near total control over wives and children. So the idea of a woman leaving her husband and taking her child was almost unthinkable.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  The novel addresses a number of themes, including alcoholism, abuse and the moral responsibility of mothers. And Anne really portrays the reality of Victorian injustice with clear eyed honesty. Right? Helen's husband, not a romantic villain. He is selfish, degrading and emotionally destructive. Anne refuses to excuse his behaviour or sentimentalise Helen's endurance. It is honest, it is raw and, and argues explicitly, right? That enduring abuse is not virtuous.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  A radical claim in the 1840s and still one largely disputed today.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  So the reaction to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was mixed. And primarily at the time, deeply hostile, right? Many critics accused Anne of vulgarity and immorality. Not because she endorsed the vices depicted, but because she depicted it far too clearly and honestly. Even Charlotte later criticised the novel, believing it exposed coarse subjects unnecessarily. But Anne disagreed. She believed silence enabled harm with her feminism lying in the practical rather than the rhetorical. She avoided Gothic excess and emotional melodrama, which her sisters often employed.

• 1:11:41Speaker 00

  Um, and instead focused on real conditions, real laws and real consequences for women. And for me, this distinction reveals the truth.

• 1:11:56Speaker 00

  That Anne was willing to be disliked in order to tell the truth. Which is why I think she is by far the most impressive fronte of the lot.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  Controversial. But guys, what is not impressive is 1848. It was not a year to be celebrated in the Bronte household, despite the book's release. Branwell's persistent drunkenness disguised the decline of his health and he died on the 24th of September, 1848, to the shock of all. From then, coughs and colds plagued the family during the winter of 1848. Again, Emily fell ill. She refuses medical treatment. She dies on the 19th of December. Her loss deeply, deeply affected Anne. Remember, these two are super close.

• 1:12:50Speaker 00

  And she became increasingly unwell, so much so that in early January, 1849, her father sent for a physician who diagnosed her with advanced consumption with like little hope of recovery.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  Where I would have been hysterical or in shock. Anne meets this news in the most Anne way possible with characteristic determination and self-control. But still, inside, Anne was really frustrated with ambition. This makes her most kind of like Charlotte, right? She wrote the tenant of Wildfell Hall and it really awoken something in her. And she ended up writing to Ellen Nully, um, in the last few days of her life and said, "I have no horror of death, but I wish it would please God to spare me because I long to do good in the world before I leave it.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  I have many schemes in my head for future practice, humble and limited indeed, but still, I should not like them all to come to nothing and myself to have lived to so little purpose."

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  So unlike Emily, Anne took all the recommended medicines, um, and followed the advice she was given until her eventual death in May, aged 29. Which leaves us with only one surviving Bronte, Charlotte. She was 33 years old, if only her father left in the world.

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  But this really spurred her on. Again, she wrote Shirley and Valette as well, um, as beginning to move in more kind of exalted social circles, unlike Emily and Anne, who, again, they died so young, but they were entirely opposed to their real identities being known. Charlotte, however, discreetly revealed herself to her publisher and friends as the author of Jane Eyre. Why wouldn't you? Like, imagine everybody's talking about it, you're a huge success, a massive topic of conversation. People love what you've written, this glorious piece of work, as if you wouldn't want the credit, right? And from that moment on, she really began to take short trips to London, only short,

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  uh, where she met other writers and women who inspired, challenged and surprised her. And it was around this time that Charlotte received a letter from the Reverend Arthur Bell Nichols, an Irishman from her father's native town of Ulster.

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  In this letter, he proposed to her, flat out, which she initially refused and her father also objected because, um, of Nichols' poor financial status. But by 1854, she's lost everyone, right? And she accepted his proposal and they got married, much to the dismay of Patrick, who intended to walk her down the aisle but changed his mind at the last minute and could not.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  At this point in her life, Charlotte was happy. She was married, she enjoyed her honeymoon, um, she enjoyed her new husband, she fell pregnant shortly after her health declined rapidly. It's so sad. And according to doctors, she was subject to sensations of perpetual nausea and ever recurring faintness. Basically, she just grew weaker and weaker as her pregnancy progressed, um, which was highly risky anyway, like she was almost 39 years old back in 1854.

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  And she fought on as hard as she could, for as long as she could, until her body just gave out with her and her unborn child dying three weeks before her 39th birthday. She was buried in the family's vault in Howarth, um, reunited with her famed sisters, sadly in death. So, a lot to take in here, guys. These are three extraordinary women, like really, truly extraordinary, who delivered seven novels in almost no time. Charlotte and Emily, both dying before 30,

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  and all of them making a permanent impact on not only 19th century society, but the world at large.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  I think the great irony of the Brontes

• 1:17:30Speaker 00

  is not only that their works were so scandalous and bold, that Victorian men believed they simply couldn't have been produced by women,

• 1:17:40Speaker 00

  but the very understanding, right? And it is revolutionary that these three, isolated, rural, poor Victorian women, had about the state of patriarchy in Victorian society, and how their comments on this called it out.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  But they still understood the impact would not be in their own time.

• 1:18:08Speaker 00

  My favourite Bronte quote is from Charlotte, who said, "Women read men more truly than men read women." I'll prove that in a magazine paper someday when I have time. Only, it will never be inserted. It will be declined with thanks and left for me at the publishers.

• 1:18:30Speaker 00

  I just think...

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  That is so incredibly relevant and profound. Again, the idea that these women understood the problem so deeply that they recognised their impact would not be then, but it would be in a time when their societal limitations no longer existed. And the scary thing is, guys,

• 1:18:59Speaker 00

  we still haven't reached that point. Sure, thank God. Women today aren't subject to the same suffocating confines of Victorian England. But the idea of us still today recognising injustice, right? Calling out patriarchy, rolling that out to the media, or, or, or just here on TikTok, right? For an example, just here on TikTok.

• 1:19:27Speaker 00

  Still, that content is being deprioritised, glazed over, rejected, or just forgotten.

• 1:19:41Speaker 00

  It is so real and makes these, again, poor, rural, isolated Victorian women so incredibly revolutionary and modern.

• 1:19:55Speaker 00

  And they were able, in their own times and in their short lives, to express that and find a deep sense of meaning and power through their works. From Anne here, for example, who says, "I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth, but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression."

• 1:20:24Speaker 00

  Their work, their creativity, their freedom to express themselves through the written word became a path for them to walk to make sense of the world around them and the society in which they are placed.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  But more than that, guys.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  It helps us make sense of our world today, right? The Brontes, as an entity, have largely become a yardstick for which we are able to measure the rights, the feelings, the thoughts and ideas of women throughout time.

• 1:21:05Speaker 00

  And I think that is just such an incredible legacy, right? Dwarfed perhaps only by actual change, which again, the Brontes knew they couldn't do alone and that women, women, couldn't and still can't do alone today.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  So perhaps the most revolutionary thing about the Brontes is the fact that they not only recognised, one, the patriarchal structures of Victorian England, but two, directly called out men to change that. So lastly, I want to leave you with this extract from Charlotte. It is so moving.

• 1:21:52Speaker 00

  So in her words, she says, "Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts and as much as their brothers do, they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute stagnation, precisely as men would suffer. And it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow creature to say that they ought to confine themselves to make puddings and knitting stockings to playing on the piano and embroidering backs."

• 1:22:36Speaker 00

  In the end, guys,

• 1:22:39Speaker 00

  the Bronte sisters remain as impactful and relevant today as they did in 1847, calling out and challenging the Victorian ideas about women, desire, marriage and morality in a way that is unfortunately still relevant today. That is why they are still impactful and relevant.

• 1:23:08Speaker 00

  Which brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History.

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  I am so excited for this podcast to be back in 2026. I said it in last week's episode, we will have big, chunky, deep dive episodes on people, places, events, battles, you name it, just like this today. But we will also have some discussion episodes, starting from next week. So as promised, guys, the hot take for next week will be, why are we so obsessed with the Nazis? I will be giving my hot history take, but I want to hear from you on what your hot take on that question is. So you can email me at [email protected], DM me at Hot History

• 1:23:54Speaker 00

  Club on Instagram. You can head to my Linktree and there is a form where you can submit your hot take anonymously if you would like. If you'd like to send me a message or a voice note, I would love to hear your thoughts and I'm super excited to try and answer the question, why we are so obsessed with the Nazis? As always, guys, you can follow for more hot history on Instagram at Hot History Club and on TikTok at hot dot history. It has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you and make sure you tune in next Friday for that first hot take. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.