Emily Bronte (Jane) 1818-48, sister of Charlotte and Anne Bronte, was the fifth child of Reverend Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell Bronte. Her father was of Irish stock and was known for his picturesque, free-flowing speech, poetry and imagination. Her mother was a Methodist from Cornwall having literary leanings. She briefly attended the school at Cowan Bridge with Charlotte in 1824-25, and was then educated largely at home, where she was particularly close to Anne, with whom she created the imaginary world of Gondal, the setting for many of her finest dramatic poems. She was intensely attached to the moorland scenery of home and passionately loved nature and animals. She was strongly opposed to formal religion and seldom attended church; but her writings suggest that she may have had mystical experience which had a profound effect on her work, particularly her poetry. Although best known for her fiction, she is essentially a poet, and her Remembrance, The Old Stoic, and Last Lines are considered excellent poetry. She died on December 19, 1848, at the young age of thirty. She knew nothing of the success which Wuthering Heights was to be finally accorded.
