Catherine Reef

By sheer coincidence, I read The Bronte Sisters immediately after Dorothy Sayers's Are Women Human? and found many threads of connection between Sayers's and Charlotte Bronte's insistence that women (and their work) should, indeed must, be considered as human first and foremost. Charlotte and her sisters struggled much more than Sayers did against the attitudes that would confine women to a narrow scope of endeavour defined by men, but the attitudes are still recognizable even now. Sayers, writing around 1940, is approximately halfway between the Brontes and the present, so it's interesting to see social attitudes sampled at 80-year intervals ... interesting to see what has changed, and appalling to see how much has stayed the same.

Also, this biography was well-written, enjoyable to read, well-illustrated, and informative. I feel that I know the Brontes much better and after a thorough introduction to their entire work, I'd like to read some of the books I have yet to encounter.… (more)