The Essence of the Brontes available now in paperback from Carcanet
September sees the official release of a new edition of The Essence of the Brontes, a collection of Muriel Spark's musings on the lives and works of the famous literary sisters. With acute observation, but without sentimentality, Spark dissects and assesses not only the Brontes themselves - their achievements and shortcomings - but also her own fascination and eventual obsession with the sisters as a novelist. Originally published by Peter Owen in 1993, this revamped version features a new introduction by former literary editor of The Independent, Boyd Tonkin, who writes that 'Spark may love the Brontes and their work, but that does not mean she likes them very much.' The book also contains a selection of the Brontes' letters, as well as a selection of Emily Bronte's poems.
Here we've posted an extract from Spark's own foreword in which she reflects on how she believes the sisters used their own domestic situation to create an enigmatic aura around themselves as individuals and around their family, in order to drive public interest in their writings:
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| © Muriel Spark, Dec 1992 The Essence of the Brontes is available from Carcanet now, and you can also check out our other Spark publications: |
The Carcanet Blog Sale
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