Charlotte Brontë

An exemplary biography: brisk but attentive to all nuance; lucid and open in its judgements; wearing its learning lightly but visibly -- Jan Marsh * New Statesman *
Brilliant and powerful . . . [Gordon] brings us the closest we are ever likely to get to an understanding of the source of Charlotte Bronte's creative genius . . . Bronte biography has, at last, come of age -- Mark Bostridge * TES *
Sensitive, open-minded, vivid, full of psychological insight, [Gordon's] book is a brilliant reappraisal of Charlotte Bronte's life, work, and the flow between the two . . . It is also a deeply moving story -- Jackie Wullschlager * Financial Times *
A magnificent biography focusing on the gaps and silences in Charlotte Brontë's emotionally turbulent life. This is Gordon's best book and the best thing about Charlotte Brontë yet -- Fiona MacCarthy * Observer *
A book full of brilliant suggestions which do engage our attention and interest from the first page to the last -- Claire Tomalin * Independent on Sunday *
Lyndall Gordon approaches her subject with the imagination of the true critic -- Lucasta Miller * The Times *
A classic biography . . . which combines scholarship with popular appeal -- Roy Hattersley * Mail on Sunday *
This is by far the most interesting portrait of Charlotte that I have read: those who know little of the Brontës will find it riveting; for those who know more, it is compulsive * Elizabeth Jane Howard *
Lyndall Gordon has described perfectly - everywhere she has the most dextrous mastery over the masses of material - the long climb that had to be made from the Brontës' elf-lit country of their childhood...to the 'real' world of Charlotte's fiction...found Lyndall Gordon's portraits of [George] Smith [CB's publisher] and his mother...as vivid and masterly as Charlotte's own. She is convincing and deeply interesting about the last phase of Charlotte's life, her marriage -- Jane Gardam * Spectator *
Vivid, critical, sensitive -- Hermione Lee * Sunday Times *
What is new and interesting in this book, which is frequently brilliant and insightful and always perceptive in its discussion of the texts themselves, is Lyndall Gordon's view of Charlotte as a secret subversive who...carried on a covert existence of her own -- Rebecca Fraser * Literary Review *
Lyndall Gordon is an inspired and unconventional biographer who convincingly rescues Charlotte from the well-meaning but unimaginative Mrs Gaskell -- Joan Smith * Independent on Sunday *
Presents a radically new picture of [Charlotte Bronte]...In this revealing new portrait, Charlotte emerges as determined, courageous, and full of "a secret fire" * Good Book Guide *
Lyndall Gordon writes almost as vividly as her subject...There's unlikely to be a better book about the author of Jane Eyre -- Brian Morton * Scotland on Sunday *
Wonderfully original readings of the work itself and a subtle tracing of the complicated path through which the writer succeeded in transmuting the difficult material of life to art * Newsday *
An essential companion...is not intended as the straightforward biographical narrative, but as an interpretation of "the unseen space" in Charlotte's life (and by implication the unseen spaces in all writers)...brilliant and convincing -- Elizabeth Buchan * Daily Express *
A crisp study of a fascinating subject * Sunday Sun *
The contradictions in CB's life are not only fully chronicled in Lyndall Gordon's splendid new biography, but also gracefully explicated to give the reader a vivid and emotionally detailed portrait of the novelist and her work -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *
A breathtaking, energetic and bold work * San Francisco Chronicle *
An exemplary biography: brisk but attentive to all nuance; lucid and open in its judgements; wearing its learning lightly but visibly * Jan Marsh, New Statesman *
Brilliant and powerful . . . [Gordon] brings us the closest we are ever likely to get to an understanding of the source of Charlotte Bronte's creative genius . . . Bronte biography has, at last, come of age * Mark Bostridge, TES *