Charlotte wrote during Victorian times and highlighted the position of women in society.

How they became authors and based their books on personal life experiences.Ĭharlotte, is such an interesting character herself and as the title of my post suggests, was breaking the bias against women’s inequality before it even became a hashtag in 2022. The influence of the Aunt to cared for them afer their mother’s death. We learn about their lives growing up in Haworth with their father a parson, their Mother who is thought to have died from cancer, two older sisters (Maria and Elizabeth, who both died young) and a brother. The book certainly adds another dimension to appreciating the books and getting to know Charlotte, Emily and Anne. I read it on a lazy Sunday and would recommend that you don’t read it until you’ve read the books, otherwise there are spoiler alerts throughout as Catherine discusses the parallels between the authors and the storylines of each book. Last Sunday, I stumbled upon a book, ‘ The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne‘, written by Catherine Reef and found it fascinating. I’ll fill you in on that in a later post but it is a lovely way to finish the book discussion. We also ended each book with a baking session under the direction of our ‘resident baker in the group’ to bake something that related to the book. We found ourselves actually ‘studying’ the books and diving down rabbit holes to find more information about the Bronte sisters to share with the group. This worked so well for me, as it gave me an insight not only to the story but to the authors. The Book Club took time, breaking each book into sections then meeting to discuss before moving onto the next section.

I had not heard of this book before, but it has become my favourite of all the Brontë works. Last meeting, we finished the final book ‘Shirley’ by Charlotte Brontë.

We decided at the outset to study the classics and to start with reading all of the works written by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. I’ve mentioned before that I belong to a wonderful, yet intimate Book Club group that meets Online. However, I think that women have always tried to break the gender bias as I discovered reading the Brontë sisters collection. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day was #BreaktheBias and my contribution is to #BreaktheBias of Ageism and Stereotypes for Women Over 50.

The Brontë Sisters by Catherine Reef