Product Description
This file includes: Cottage Poems by Patrick Bronte (father of the Bronte sisters), 1811; Poems by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, 1846; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 1847;
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 1847; Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, 1847; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, 1848; Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, 1849; Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell, 1850; Villette by Charlotte Bronte, 1853; The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, 1857; The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1857; and Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle by Clement K. Shorter, 1896.With the active (hyperlinked) Table of Contents, click on a book title and go to that book. Then use the Back button to return to the Table of Contents.
Responding to customer feedback, I changed the typeface and made other improvements on 3/22/09.If you bought this book before then, you should be able to download the new version at no extra cost. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Unreadable
The horrible formatting makes many of the books in the collection completely unreadable. Elizabeth Gaskell's Biography of Charlotte Bronte is the poorest formatted of all books here but the rest are quite unreadable as well. The ending of each subchapter is absent as if it were chewed off. The typos abound, and you have to sit there guessing how the sentence was supposed to end.

The Brontes are amazing writers and they don't deserve to have their works tortured like this by unconscientious publishers eager to make a buck without doing any editing or formatting work.

Needs improvement but suits my needs
As of mid Dec 2009 there is no active table of contents for each chapter of each book, just only one heading for each particular book.
All the poems are under just one entry, so it is impossible to look for a poem by its title or to tell which poem belongs to which of the family members. You can however search for a poem if you are familiar with any part of it.
I experienced sentence breakage in the middle of paragraphs for "Jane Eyre" but not the "Wuthering Heights" as stated by one other reviewer. You should expect to find as many of them as there are pages on a printed book.Let's say 400.
At the present time this edition has suited my needs and don't need to upgrade to a more expensive edition.

Poor formatting ruins great works
I wanted to read Jane Eyre and thought I was getting a good deal since I want to read Wuthering Heights at a later time. Although it is easy to navigate to specific works in the collection, the font is distracting and awkward to read for any length of time and the punctuation indistinct (the periods and commas are hard to tell apart). There is also random paragraph spacing in the middle of lines. I ended up buying another edition of Jane Eyre to finish reading the book.

This is great!
I love that I have all of the Bronte sisters' works on my Kindle in a single file. The table of contents makes everything conveniently accessible. ... Read more

Product Description
The extraordinary creativity of the Brontë sisters, who between them wrote some of the most enduring fiction in the English language, continues to fascinate and intrigue modern readers. The tragedy of their early deaths adds poignancy to their novels, and in the popular imagination they have become mythic figures. And yet, as Patricia Ingham shows, they were fully engaged with the world around them, and their writing, from the juvenilia to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, reflects the preoccupations of the age in which they lived. Their novels, which so shocked their contemporaries, address the burning issues of the day: class, gender, race, religion, and mental disorders. As well as examining these connections, Ingham also shows how film and other media have reinterpreted the novels for the twenty-first century.
The Bront"s is a lively, accessible, and critically topical exploration of the novels of the three sisters, and includes a chronology of the Brontës, websites, illustrations, a comprehensive index, and suggestions for further reading.
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Product Description
Agnes Grey
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Eyre
The Professor
Villette
Wuthering Heights
Poems By Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell ... Read more

Product Description
Charlotte Bronte wrote in the preface to her sister Emily's novel that the book was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials. Indeed. What was wrought, however, is "almost beautiful...with its blooming bells and balmy fragrance, [growing] faithfully close to the giant's foot." This is a towering story of the brooding love of Heathcliff for Cathy, a woman he cannot have, and the revenge he takes on the families who stand in his way. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Cliff's Notes Wuthering Heights
This is a great product! It catches the main points of the book, so you don't miss any important information! I highly suggest it for those who are planning on reading the book. It is very helpful!

A good help.
This is a good handbook to have.The summaries are useful and it contains some diagrams that help you figure out some of the more confusing parts of the novel.Helpful in trying to understand a sometimes difficult novel.

Use This Correctly and Don't Cheat!
This is not the Wuthering book by Emily Bronte. It is a Cliffs Notes Study Guide version. This is good to read but only if you have read the whole book by Bronte and you have to write a book report and just need some references from the Cliff Notes version if there was something in the book that you didn't understand. Don't try to con your teacher by only reading the Cliff Notes version. Just read the book and read a great story and impress your teacher. It always amazes me how dumb some students can be by trying to cheat with Cliff Notes, I mean the teacher always can tell when someone has done it too so it's not like they are fooling anyone. Cliff Notse are very helpful and have gotten a bad rap from sneaky cheaters!

It s a great study guide for the book
if you are having trouble with the book (like i did) these cliff notes really help you understand the plot, characters, and other stuff you need to know for class...etc... ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

Product Description
Two classic novels by the Bronte sisters, now available together on Kindle.

Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights

With working TOC ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

No working Table of Contents
You have to page forward or page back until you reach the page you seek. This is extremely annoying. The product review claims there is a working TOC; not true.

Love these books
These are two great classics, and my daughter had to read Jane Eyre for school. She was having trouble reading her copy because we found out she was in need of new glasses. Downloading to the Kindle and making the font bigger spurred her into reading and liking the book.

My Favorite Books
I'd been wanting to read both of these stories and found these copies sitting on a shelf in my grandfather's library.Being a retired English teacher, he has all sorts of old, pretty-looking books, but these two stuck out to me.He told me I could take them and keep them as long as I took good care of them.They are two of the most beautiful books I own, and the engravings add wonderfully to the story.I own another copy of Wuthering Heights that I had to buy to annotate for school, and it just is not the same as reading it out of this book.

Exactly as I remembered
Our family owned this set when I was a child.I loved the wood engravings which inspired me to attempt to read Jane Eyre before I was old enough to comprehend most of the text.This edition started my life long love for classic literature.I would love to locate these editions for my own library as the ones from my childhood are now long gone.

A Book Lover's Must-Have!
This edition of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights is, without question, where my lifelong love of books and English literature was born. As a child, I would pore over the Fritz Eichenberg wood engravings in my mother's set and long for the day when I would be old enough to read the books. Unlike anything before or since, the Eichenberg illustrations dramatically convey the atmosphere of the Bronte novels--dark, cold, sad, and haunting. I have purchased these sets for students who also have grown to love the Brontes, so my only reservation in urging people to buy these books is that I will need a few remaining copies to buy for future students, I am sure! It would be wonderful if a publisher would undertake a re-issuing of this edition of the novels. ... Read more

Product Description
This edition of this book does not contain a publish date.The date provided might not be accurate.This edition features Lithographs and has an ornate cover.Also included is a Nice Paperboard Slip Cover. ... Read more

Product Description
Wuthering Heights:
Emily Brontë's only novel, this tale portrays Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. First published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, Wuthering Heights is considered to be a classic of English literature.

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A Tale of Two Cities:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known' After finishing A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens said 'it has greatly moved and excited me in the doing'. One of his most haunting novels, it has, since its first serial publication in 1859, continued to exert a grip on the popular imagination. Set during the French revolution in a lethal, vengeful Paris and a leafy, tranquil London, the two cities of the title are only a part of the novel's stark dichotomies, which are continued as Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay - their lives touched by the same woman - are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris only to fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

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Customer Reviews (2)

Free SF Reader
Set on the moors, it is a pity that the Hound of the Baskervilles didn't get 'em.This would have saved a lot of characters a lot of grief. An orphan is taken in, and the problems start there as he grows up, has his own problems and inflicts them on others. The great detective has something to say about such places : "But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger." 2 out of 5

Thisbookshows different ways the text can be viewed.
The Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism Series has doneexcellent work in showing different ways of looking at the Wuthering Heights text. I liked how the criticisms were collectedafter the text with the criticalpositions clearly explained first. ... Read more

Product Description
Largely self-educated, Emily Bronte (1818-1848) was her father's favorite daughter and spent most of her life at the rectory in Haworth, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. She lead a protected, uneventful existence, with almost no social contacts. Robert Barnard examines her insulated childhood, peculiarities, social boorishness, and aversion to relationships. He includes excerpts of Emily's lyrical poems of her twenties which presage the raw intensity of Wuthering Heights. Many aspects of her only novel are shaped by her own experiences, and the author traces the real-life counterparts of characters, landscape, and buildings. He draws extensively from critical sources varying from early reviews of Wuthering Heights to Gaskell's appraisal of Emily's "stern selfishness," to Juliet Barker's recent biography of the Bronte family. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Visually Appealing, Packed With Facts
The British Library Writers' Lives Series on EMILY BRONTE was shelved in the Biography section at my library with a "Young Adult" sticker on the spine.But why should the YA set have all the fun?This 112-page volume is packed with goodies:

It's Colorful.

Glossy pages, which makes for great reproductions of artwork.

Reproductions of Emily Bronte's original manuscripts (clearly readable with a magnifying glass or reading glasses).

Maps of where the Brontes lived and the settings for their books.

Many color and B&W photos of the Bronte homes.

Emily's watercolors and drawings (quite good ones, too).

Photos and drawings of structures and places that inspired Wuthering Heights.

Emily's poetry (also quite good).

Chronology of the Brontes.

Index.

Further reading.

This biography is primarly about Emily, but because her life was so intertwined with her sister Charlotte's life, the book is almost a dual biography.Probably because a young woman's life in the 19th century (on the English moor, anyway) was so family-centered, do we read so much about the entire Bronte family and those they daily interacted with.

Robert Barnard (author) is the Chairman of the Bronte Society and a writer of crime novels as well.His mystery/detective sense shines through in this volume, as he seems to be able to spot a smoking gun here and there in the Bronte history.He often highlights discrepancies, mysteries, and twists in the history of the Bronte family.Apparantly, there is no shortage of such mysteries and has given rise to many theories about the family and the girls.

This book is a fine introduction to the life of the Brontes.The photos, drawings, and other coloful items included in this slim volume bring this 19th century history to life.I highly recommend it for Young Adults and other adults as well. ... Read more

Product Description
Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most popular works of English fiction. Although Charlotte Brontë's heroine is outwardly plain, she possesses an indomitable spirit, and great courage. Forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order which circumscribes her life when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic Mr Rochester.
Villette is based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. It is a moving tale of repressed feelings and cruel circumstances borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the confinement of a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's wild, passionate tale of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and, wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, he leaves Wuthering heights. When he returns years later as a wealthy man, he proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.
Agnes Grey, Ann Brontë's deeply personal novel, is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shows Ann Brontë's bold, naturalistic and passionate style. It is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Long time to arrive
This book, while an excellent read, and in good condition, took well over 3 weeks to arrive.That is just too long.

Great bang for your buck!
What a great value, and a wonderful way to rediscover some old favorites, and perhaps to find some new ones, along with comparing the different writing styles of the Bronte sisters.

One thing in this printing is you will not find the endless footnotes that you would in some of the other printings available now. I don't feel I missed out on anything, but if you feel you need to understand every word and nuance you might want to get a different version of the book(s).

Jane Eyre -- which I enjoyed much more the second time around. It's always good to take time to reread those required books from school once you've obtained some years and maturity. This is a lovely and somewhat autobiographical tale of Jane Eyre, orphaned and raised by self-centered and uncaring relatives until they send her off to school. Eventually she is hired as a governess to a young girl and meets the girl's guardian Mr. Rochester, and of course they fall in love and plan to marry. But, there is a mystery about the house that once it is discovered destroys the wedding plans.

A lovely tale, and Bronte has such a wonderful prose that makes you want to slow down and savor it and the story like a fine red wine or chocolate. Highly highly recommended, one that should be taken off the shelf and reread every couple of years or so. Five stars.

Wuthering Heights -- The dark and brooding tale of Cathy & Heathcliff. What a great experience to finally reread this classic as an adult. Emily Bronte depicts a very gothic and depressing story of two star-crossed (but not terribly likeable) lovers, Cathy & Heathcliff, and the love between them that transcended the grave. Added to that a wonderful depiction of the dark English moors and the local characters with their strange dialects. This was also told in a very unusual style, like a tale within a tale within a tale, adding more layers and perspectives to the story.

How unfortunate that one's upbringing can so affect a person that their grief and bitterness turn what could have been a fine young man into such a hateful and vengeful person as Heathcliff became. And fortunate that Cathy's daughter and Hareton could overcome their dark upbringing to bring a happier light onto the dark moors of England.

It's one book you have to read at least twice in your life -- of course in school as required reading and then again as an adult to add that perspective of age and experience in life so that one can more fully appreciate a such a classic tale. Four stars.

Villette -- another semi-autobiographical tale from Charlotte Bronte, based upon her time spent teaching in Belgium. This is not a novel of page turning excitement, but a lovely tale of one woman's battle to maintain her independence. It's very interesting how the author brings characters in and out of her tale, and ties them all together in the end. Along with that, Bronte's gorgeous prose and all those large words that make you want to go running for the dictionary.

A lovely tale, but this one had much more french than Jane Eyre and I would have appreciated some footnotes to interpret those phrases to enjoy the tale more. Five stars.

Anges Grey -- This was a simple, albeit enjoyable tale of Agnes Grey, a younger daughter who seeks her way in the world employed as a governess. I understand this tale is based upon Ms. Bronte's own experiences and brings to light the snobbery of the upper class along with the often degrading way that the servants are treated by the same.

The first family literally has the children from h***, the second family being not quite as abusive, but still treat the servants as second class people. The young Misses Murray and self centered and thoughtless, particularly the elder (who gets what she deserves in the end).

It's been interesting to compare the sisters' writing styles. Anne's is much closer to Chartlotte's, with the gorgeous flowing prose, but not quite so littered with the large words and the smattering of french.

Well worth your time checking out for a pleasant, short read. Four stars

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall -- This is a very different novel from the other of Anne Bronte's that I've read, Agnes Grey. The story is told mostly from the first person viewpoint of Gilbert Markham as he and his fellow villagers meet the mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall, the widowed Mrs. Graham, who has a bit of a mystery about her and her young son.

As feelings grow between the two main characters, the story is shifted to the viewpoint of Mrs. Graham as retold through a diary she wrote, and about her life married to an abusive, unfaithful alcoholic, and her efforts finally to extricate herself from the marriage.

An interesting tale, and I give the author marks for tackling what in her time would have been a most controversial topic (women just did not leave their husbands, no matter what the reason). Some of the melodrama is more than a tad bit over the top, Helen was just too pure and good natured, and having a woman writer write in the first person viewpoint of a man was a bit of a stretch for me. Gilbert was at times too emotional in a womanly sort of way -- I mean throwing himself down on the wet ground and having a good cry over a broken heart was way over the top for me. He was also a bit too brutish and rough at times for my taste, and not always very likeable, but that is the author's choice as to how she wrote her characters.

Other than those quibbles it was a very entertaining read and some very thought provoking topics to take with you when finished with the book.Four stars.
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Product Description
Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel by Emily Brontë. First published in 1847, Brontë published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte.

The story tells of an all-encompassing and passionate, yet stifled love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and about how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Best Brontë Biography by Far
"Please see my "The Hand of the Arch-Sinner: Two Angrian Chronicles of Branwell Brontë" review for a review of this book.

The last biography of the Brontes?
Regardless of one's opinions about Juliet Barker's impression of Charlotte, and the rest of the Brontes, one can argue neither with the credibility of the author nor with her incredible research.The author has lived within a few miles of Haworth her entire life; was librarian and curator at the Bronte Parsonage Museum for six years; and researched this book for 11 years before publishing.The biography is 830 pages long, with an additional 150 pages of notes, and 30 pages of index.I would recommend this to those who are already well acquainted with the Brontes. It won't change your own personal myth of the Brontes, but it will shed light on trivia that might help explain background, names, and places in the various Bronte novels.For example, Charlotte's pseudonym, Currer Bell, now makes sense, though I disagree with Juliet's suggestion.This is much more than a biography; Juliet Barker includes the politics of the time, origins of modern Christian religious offshoots, the labor movement (the Luddites), and even the architecture (for example, the Late Perpendicular movement).Barker's description of the English landscape is wonderful, if a bit stilted.(When one is as emotionally linked with Yorkshire as I am, it's hard not be judgmental on descriptions of that wonderful place.) This book was meant to be read by the fire, on a cold and dark winter night, preferably in Haworth, with a soul mate who appreciates Yorkshire and all it has to offer.

The Brontes: a definitive literary biography
I first read this book in 1995. I only recently bought my own copy.

In this book, Juliet Barker provides a feast of information about the lives, times and writings of the Brontes. She is not the first to traverse this territory, but I believe that she does it more comprehensively than anyone else.The book itself is both a delight to read as well as a wonderful reference.

My only (slight) quibble is the greater focus on Charlotte.Perhaps this is inevitable: Charlotte did outlive her siblings, and published more novels.

I am biased.I have been a fan of the Brontes (especially Emily and Anne) for over 40 years.

Highly recommended to all Bronte fans.


Jennifer Cameron-Smith


Please note: this review was first published on July 28 2006

Well constructed, moving
I finished this last week and really enjoyed it.It is a very absorbing biography of the Bronte family through their letters.Charlotte Bronte's life was just as dramatic as her novels, and in fact formed the basis for them.The epistolary format works very well, and allows a more personal view into their lives than a regular biography can.The focus is mostly on Charlotte as Anne and Emily didn't correspond with many people.

AND the kitchen sink....
That the Brontes were talented and have left an enduring legacy to the world of lituature is an unchallenged fact. That this book is the most exhaustive study of that family to date will probably also be undisputed. For anyone who has ever wanted to aquaint themselves with every cobblestone trod upon, every house lived in or visited, every sermon attended, every note written, every dress sewn - THIS is the book for you. In a book of 1000+ pages, the years in which the great Bronte lituature was produced is covered in a mere 125+ pages. Almost a footnote in a body of work of this size. Slightly less perhaps would have left us with much more
... Read more

Product Description
Active Table of Contents

Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
The Scarlet Letter
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* Search C.M. Harbin in Kindle Store for more Classic Collections! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Emily Brontë's poems are more frequently celebrated than read. Ironically, their very uniqueness and strangeness have made them less interesting to current feminist critics than other poetry written by Victorian women. This much-needed study reinstates Emily Brontë's poems at the heart of Romantic and Victorian concerns while at the same time underlining their enduring relevance for readers today.

Last Things presents the poems as the achievement of a powerfully independent mind responding to its own inner experience of the world while seeking always an abrogation of human limits compatible with a stern morality. Although the book does not discuss all of Brontë's poems, it seeks to be comprehensive by undertaking an analysis of individual poems, the progress she made from the beginning of her career as a poet to its end, her poetical fragments and her writing practice, and her motives for writing poetry. Last Things also brings the emotions and concerns that inform Wuthering Heights into sharper focus by relating them to the poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

a powerful book
For the uninitiated, first let me say that Brontë studies isn't merely an academic specialty.It is a cult.As Miss Austen has her Janeites, so Charlotte, Emily, Anne and sometimes Branwell have their devoted (if less succinctly monikered) following.

The result is that debates linger which otherwise might have died away in under a century and a half.One is attribution.Ever since the names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell appeared in print, people have argued over who wrote what."Last Things" inserts a fresh word into this and other ongoing Brontë controversies.

But don't be misled.This book is neither a retracing of tired ground nor a tortured argument driven by the bare hope of saying something new.It is, first and foremost, an examination of Emily Brontë's poems offered in language as incisive as a well-honed blade.Gezari's taut economy of expression occasionally creates enigmas.Chapter five, for instance, makes passing reference to ambiguity in a section of verse that, to my eyes, admits only one interpretation.A very few such moments aside, "Last Things" bears its readers along in close reading that is as vividly alive to the feel of the poetry as to its signification.

Gezari warns at the outset that the poems give little information on the private life of their author, yet the accumulated insights of this book provide a glimpse, like a shadow in a mirror, of someone quite different from the misanthropic self-hurter, the feminine Heathcliff with the rage turned inward, in whose form Emily has been known.At the heart of Brontë's poems, "Last Things" discovers a view of life bound to give us all pause on a human and personal level as well as a literary one.

crave injustice to Emily Bronte
Why an author would suggest that you can jumble up the word order of a poet's output is beyond my keen. To parse, reverse, take in jumbled order a poem and ask me to spend my time trying to understand what the author is on about, while the poem, undisturbed and before my very eyes, reads so fine, smooth,deep and emotive. This author is smoking the drapes. ... Read more