Tales of Angria

The Brontë children (there were six, but Maria and Elizabeth died young) amused themselves by creating imaginary worlds – not uncommon, but the Brontës kept up with them into adolescence and even adulthood. The protagonists were originally based on Branwell Brontë’s toy soldiers, who were imagined to be a set of English explorers in west Africa, founders of the kingdoms of Angria and Gondal.


Branwell and Charlotte specialized in Angria, while Anne and Emily adopted Gondal. As might be expected, Branwell developed a military history of Angria, which Charlotte used to provide backgrounds for her stories. Although they are geographically dubious – West Africa seems amazingly like rural England, including heavy snowstorms, and the show more territory north of Angria is unimaginatively called “Frenchyland” – the Angria tales are much more risqué than Charlotte’s adult works. Women of negotiable virtue are prominent, and in one case an adolescent girl sets out to seduce her much older guardian – and succeeds. Pretty heavy stuff for a clergyman’s daughter from Victorian rural Yorkshire. You almost feel guilty reading these – as if you had accidentally upset the Brontë misses’ laundry basket and found a collection of kinky lingerie hidden under the petticoats.


Although readable enough, the Angria stories are not great literature and would be totally forgotten if the author was Jane Doe rather than Charlotte Brontë. Still, there is some insight here into how Jane Eyre ended up with Mr. Rochester. Read if you’re curious. show less

Prior to reading these short stories I had not met a Charlotte Bronte work that I did not read voraciously. It could be due to the subject matter or to the less-mature style in which they were written, but I found these early writings somewhat difficult to read. While they provide an interesting perspective into her growth as an author, but there is not much else to recommend them.

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Title: Tales of Angria
Series: ----------
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Romance
Pages: DNF 10/786
Words: DNF 3k/227K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

In 1834, Charlotte Brontë and her brother Branwell created the imaginary kingdom of Angria in a series of tiny handmade books. Continuing their saga some years later, the five 'novelettes' in this volume were written by Charlotte when she was in her early twenties, and depict a aristocratic show more beau monde in witty, racy and ironic language. She creates an exotic, scandalous atmosphere of intrigue and destructive passions, with a cast ranging from the ageing rake Northangerland and his Byronic son-in-law Zamorna, King of Angria, to Mary Percy, Zamorna's lovesick wife, and Charles Townshend, the cynical, gossipy narrator. Together the tales provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind and creative processes of the young writer who was to become one of the world's great novelists.

My Thoughts:

When the story starts out with a heroine actively trying to emotionally seduce a married man, that was all it took for me to DNF this. I believe this is the last entry for Charlotte Bronte and my goodness, that is good. Outside of Jane Eyre and Villette, none of her stories have really stood up as far as I'm concerned.

It probably also didn't help that the last couple of books have both been 1stars, dnf's or both. Having three books in a row all be 1stars is wicked disheartening and the only thing I have to say is that the rest of the month better improve or I'll be writing some seriously inappropriate book reviews where I get mean and ugly.

Bleh.

★☆☆☆☆ show less