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Where To Start with The Brontës – The Ultimate Reading Guide

Where to Start with The Brontes
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Regarding the question of where to start with the Brontës, opinions differ wildly. Fans tend to favour either Anne, Emily or Charlotte and will fiercely defend their superiority over the others. This guide will not do that. Or at least, it will offer various Bronte reading plans that allow you to form your own opinion.

For the sake of this article, I have decided to group together the sisters as The Brontës because their collective bibliography makes for good reading. I acknowledge that a mistake many readers make is to expect all three sisters to write the same way. This is disastrous. It’s like reading Dicken’s and expecting him to be Hemingway.

Each author has a distinct style; if Charlotte’s novels are a stiff wind and Emily’s one novel, Wuthering Heights, is a thunderstorm, Anne’s might be described as an unrelenting breeze. It’s important to bear this in mind when you decide to read the Brontës. Okay, I’ve got that off my chest, let’s get going, shall we?

Who Were the Brontë Sisters?

Two hundred years ago, in a cramped and remote parsonage in the wilds of Yorkshire, three sisters were born. Each would, at the same table, sit down to write novels which changed the landscape of fiction forever. Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) and Anne Brontë (1820-1849) were not the only children in this family. There were two more sisters and a brother. But they are the reason we’ve heard the name of Brontë at all.

It is unusual enough for a genius like the Bronte sisters possessed to exist, let alone in the same family. That three women, within the confines of strict Victorian morality, who lived such tragically short, thwarted lives, possessed it, is nothing short of miraculous.

A highly romanticised portrait by Edwin Landseer said to be of the Brontë Sisters

What Books Did The Brontë Sisters Write?

Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Where to begin? The novels that they left behind outshone nearly every other 19th-century British novel through their unrelenting originality. In fact, the Brontë effect on literature is still felt today, both directly and indirectly (but more on that later).

In their own ways, each explored the prison of gender with unprecedented clear-sightedness for the time. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that, in such brief lives, they managed to capture something so perennial and put it into writing. Don’t believe me? Even Virginia Woolf had an opinion:

“As we open Jane Eyre once more we cannot stifle the suspicion that we shall find her world of imagination as antiquated, mid-Victorian, and out of date as the parsonage on the moor, a place only to be visited by the curious, only preserved by the pious. So we open Jane Eyre; and in two pages every doubt is swept clean from our minds.”

Virginia Woolf

Where to Start with The Brontës – Reading Plans

Okay, so that’s all very poetic and impassioned, and you can tell I love them. But let’s get down to business! Where is the best place to start reading the Bronte sisters? Never fear, brave reader, I have four reading plans for you!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Reading Plan 1: The Greatest Hits

When it comes to where to start with The Brontes, The Greatest Hits are always a safe bet. Emily and Charlotte are arguably the most famous Brontës and this reading plan will introduce you to their most popular novels first.

I’d like to take this moment to defend Anne. Who is arguably the most radical (I’ve written more about that here) Brontë. Her works are full of quiet power and shocked Charlotte’s (and Victorian England’s) sensibilities so much that she suppressed them after Anne’s early death. Now that’s saying something! Thankfully, the previous assumption that Anne was a lesser talent than her sisters is beginning to change.

Agnes Grey book cover

Reading Plan 2: Chronological

There is something fascinating about tracking an author’s development through their works and that’s why a suggestion of where to start with the Brontes is from the beginning.

Of course, since Emily only wrote one book before she died there is no way to know what she would have written next- if anything. But when it comes to Where to Start with the Brontes, it is fascinating to read the books collectively in this way.

*Note* this reading plan suggests Jane Eyre for its first book, as it was published first. If you would like to read the book that Charlotte wrote alongside Emily and Anne- you need to begin with The Professor which was published posthumously.

Where to Start with The Brontes

Reading Plan 3: Mix it Up

This suggested reading plan on where to start with The Brontes mixes it up a bit. Since Charlotte wrote the most books, it’s hard to avoid an over-emphasis. However, this reading plan means you can avoid consecutively reading four novels by Charlotte. If that’s your preference.

In fact, there is some method to the madness here. The books are like couplets; each pair focuses on a similar theme. Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre explore life as a Governess in Victorian England. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Shirley are Social Novels which focus on the roles of women. Finally, in Wuthering Heights, The Professor and Vilette all take obsession, and obsessive love, as their inspiration- with different results.

Reading Plan 4: Poetry and Juvenalia

Although the Brontës are best known for their prose fiction, they also wrote a wide variety of poems and short stories. In fact, their first published work (Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell) was a book of poetry. The siblings, along with their brother Branwell, also created intricate fictional worlds for themselves. For the curious, High Life in Verdopolis is a prime example of this.

Wading into the Brontë Juvenilia is a complicated web. But I do think that for those interested in a Writer’s Craft, this reading plan offers an interesting (and literal) option for where to start with The Brontës. It could also be looked at as a supplementary reading list, should you catch Brontëmania!

Where to Start with The Brontes

Bonus- Keep Reading

The literary afterlives of the Brontës are long and interesting. There is something about these three sisters and their works that have continued to inspire authors for over 150 years. With that in mind, once you know where to start with the Brontës, you might be interested in continuing the journey.

Finally, wherever you start, I hope you enjoy discovering the works of Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Happy Reading!

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