On the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Bronts birth Penguin is publishing the definitive biography of this extraordinary novelist by acclaimed literary biographer Claire Harman Charlotte Bronts life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired She was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to brutally strict boarding school at a young age She watched helpless growing up as one by one her five beloved siblings sickened and died by the end of her short life she was the only child of the Bront clan remaining And most fascinating and tragic of all throughout her adult life she was haunted by a great and unrequited love a love that tortured Charlotte but also inspired some of the most moving intense and revolutionary novels ever written in the English language Charlotte was a literary visionary a feminist trailblazer and the driving force behind the whole Bront family She encouraged her sister Emily to publish Wuthering Heights when no one else.