Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael

What a terrific book, just recently published in 2010 by Juliet Gael. I couldn't put it down!

Here's an excerpt from the website for this book:

In this masterful novel of historical fiction, Juliet Gael skillfully and stylishly captures the passions, hopes, dreams and sorrows of literature's most famous sisters–and imagines how love dramatically and most unexpectedly found Charlotte Brontë.

The book starts from the time of Arthur Bell Nicholl's arrival in Haworth and is a mixture of fact and fiction. Of course as we know, he was patiently waiting to propose to Charlotte for many years, while he was her father Patrick's curate. In fact Charlotte did make fun of curates in her books, but he seemed to be a very hardworking and steadfast man and protective of Charlotte. Quite different in size from the petite Charlotte too being a big man.

The book describes Charlotte's time being feted in London by her publisher George Smith who was quite an eligible bachelor, but 6 years younger than Charlotte. His mother was a good friend to Charlotte through her nerve racking times when forced out in public when she suffered from nervous illnesses and headaches. Sounds like Charlotte was quite attached to him but things didn't go so smoothly when he realised he was the basis of a character in one of her books and the letters diminished.

Eventually Arthur plucked up the courage to propose to Charlotte, without asking Patrick Bronte first. Patrick was incensed with rage thinking Arthur wasn't good enough for Charlotte who was now famous. (Even Thackeray was a fan of hers!!). Even Charlotte's best friend Ellen Nussey wasn't happy with Arthur proposing and their friendship suffered because of this. Charlotte didn't accept him at first, she didn't love him then, but after he persisted and she saw how much he loved her, she stood up to her father and they eventually got married. The author describes Charlotte becoming more and more attached to Arthur as she saw all his good qualities and how much he loved her. As we know, she became pregnant shirtly after her marriage but suffered from the most debilitating morning sickness and wasted away and died. What a shame the medical people couldn't do anything for her.

Arthur did inherit from her, but he remained in Haworth and looked after her father until his death a few year's later. Then Arthur went back to Ireland and became a farmer, as even though he had worked as Patrick's curate for so long, he missed getting the job after Patrick's death. Arthur later married his cousin Mary Anna who was housekeeping for him (she was disabled, but they shared separate bedrooms.). He preserved Charlotte's wedding dress, had the watercolours that were on the walls at Haworth and also the grandfather clock that Patrick wound faithfully every night on his way to bed (after Patrick went to bed Charlotte, Emily and Anne kept writing their books without their father's knowledge). Arthur lived to 90 years old, he bequeathed Charlotte's wedding dress to his niece, with instructions that it be burned before she died so that it wouldn't be sold. Interestingly at one stage Patrick cut bits of Charlotte's letters up and sent strips of her handwriting all over the world. He did this secretly as Arthur wouldn't have approved of people making money from his wife's writings.

All in all a fascinating book, very easy to read, and hard to put down. Its not often you read a book like that.
I heartily recommend it to any Bronte fans.