The Brontė sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, were famous English writers of the 1840s and 1850s, three of the six children of the Rev. Patrick Brontė and his wife Maria Branwell. They wrote under the pseudonym Bell (Currer, Ellis and Acton) and lived in Haworth, in the Southern Pennines (Yorkshire).
The only other sibling who is somewhat known is Branwell Brontė. The other two sisters, Maria and Elizabeth died in 1825 of tuberculosis. Anne, Emily and Charlotte proved susceptible to the disease and died young, leaving no children. Charlotte lived the longest, to the age of 38.
The Rev. Brontė was the eldest son of Hugh Prunty, also known as Hugh Brunty, and changed the orthography of his last name several times during his lifetime, from Brunty to Branty to Bronte to Bronté to Brontė. The diaeresis over the final e indicates that it is pronounced rather than silent.
The spelling changes have been said to have been influenced by the classical figure Brontes, or by the gift of land in the town of Bronte, Sicily in 1799 from Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies to Admiral Horatio Nelson.
The Rev. Brontė had no grandchildren and hence has no living descendants.
See also
Last updated: 08-02-2005 10:14:47
