Have you ever heard of the Great Glass Town Confederacy (also known as Verdopolis), the Kingdom of Angria, or the Kingdom of Gondol? You would need a very special map to find them!
These are dream-worlds created by Charlotte Brontë, her brother Branwell, and sisters Emily and Anne. All of the politics, war, and romance that occurred there was written down by the Brontë children, mostly in tiny hand-printing on folded sheets of paper about 2 inches by 1-1/2 inches.
The Brontë children, aged six to 10 when they began to invent these imaginary worlds, had quite a few hard times in their young lives. Their mother had died of cancer and two older sisters had died of illnesses that were probably due to the poor treatment they received at a boarding school. Their father, a minister, brought Charlotte and Emily home from the Clergy Daughters' School after the two older girls fell ill. At their home in Yorkshire, England, the children roamed the moors, kept pets, nursed ailing animals, and had only each other for playmates.
When they wrote about real life as adults, they were already experienced at developing characters and handling plots. After working as a governesses, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne set about writing and submitting their work to publishers under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. They chose these pen names partly to conceal that they were women, because critics in those days (the mid-1800s) frowned upon women writers. At first, even their publishers did not know whether they were male or female, or even if they were three people or just one.
Charlotte, the eldest, based her most famous novel, "Jane Eyre" (1847) on the difficult experiences at the boarding school, and on her experiences as a governess. Jane, the heroine of the novel, is a poor, proud, plain governess who falls in love with her sophisticated, rich and powerful employer -- then discovers his dark secret. Girls in every age have loved this book and felt a warm sympathy with Jane.
Emily, reserved and stubborn, dreamed and wrote about life on the moors in her novel, "Wuthering Heights" (1847). This wildly passionate book is the story of the fierce love of Heathcliff for Catherine, the daughter of the family who took him in as an abandoned gypsy child. When Cathy marries another man, Heathcliff vows revenge. "Wuthering Heights" was not as well received as "Jane Eyre," but today is considered a dramatic triumph with some of the most vivid landscape descriptions ever written.
Anne, gentle and pious, also drew from her life experiences in writing "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (1848), which is about the gradual decay of an alcoholic and how it affects those around him. Anne's experience with drunkenness came from her brother Branwell.
Branwell, the most talkative and showy of the Brontë children, couldn't make a success of anything. He failed as a portrait painter, tutor, and railway clerk. Then he returned home, where he drank too much and spent too much and died.
