Shirley

Abstract

Christmas never seems to have been celebrated with much rejoicing in the Brontë household, but in 1848, coming so soon after Emily’s funeral, it must have been an especially sombre occasion. Anne Brontë did not share Emily’s contempt for doctors, but the doctors who visited her could offer little comfort. Mr Brontë was far from well and not unnaturally leant heavily on Charlotte whose letters to Ellen Nussey make painful reading. The symptoms of consumption were the same with Anne as with Emily, and Charlotte, depressed and ill herself, persevered with cod-liver oil, but with little heart. Literature was out of the question. In December there had appeared the famous hostile review by Lady Eastlake in The Quarterly Review which said that if the book was written by a woman it was by one who had forfeited the society of her sex. We do not know when Charlotte read this, as she does not mention it until 4 February 1849, but as she gently tended her invalid sister her resentment must have built up.