Charlotte Brontë — writer

 
Creator(s):
Brontë, Charlotte
Title:
Letter to Ellen Nussey
Publication/Origin:
[Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire]: 12 November 1840
Description:
Charlotte Brontë begins this letter to her lifelong friend with an update on her efforts to secure work as a governess. She goes on to relate a visit from the wife of a curate whose husband ruined their family through his drinking and “treated her and her child savagely.” Brontë attests to her own distaste for the curate even before she knew about his abusive character. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell quotes this section of the letter in her biography of Brontë, noting that it “shows her instinctive aversion to a particular class of men, whose vices some have supposed she looked upon with indulgence.”
Citation:
Brontë, Charlotte, Letter to Ellen Nussey, [Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire]: 12 November 1840, Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed March 29, 2024, https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4133