What, exactly, is a Cambridge Companion? The endpapers of this book list 88, and I have reviewed a few in my time. At best, I suppose, they are an integrated collection of essays around a common subject by authorities providing a reasonably comprehensive (and comprehensible) guide to the less knowledgeable. In this companion, editor Heather Glen has achieved a well‐knit guide that will be useful to readers wanting to extend their understanding of the work of the Brontë sisters. Neither a primer nor a work of “lit‐crit”, but something in between, this companion is a work of explication and stimulation.
We have here a collection of ten substantive essays by senior academics and authorities on the Brontës. Each takes a particular theme or group of writings, gives background and context, and draws out themes and points of interest. A certain degree of knowledge is required – a reading of some of the novels and an acquaintance with the Brontë story – but generally the contributors do not demand detailed knowledge and generally steer clear of academic obscurantism; I recall no mention of literary theory or tropes. Five of the chapters are on the writings of the Brontë children. The poorly known yet important juvenilia are given a good general discussion – ideal introduction for the newcomer; then there is quite the best analysis on the poetry that I have come across, though I would have liked a basic descriptive history; the account of the first three novels written – The Professor, Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights is perhaps a touch over‐literate, but sparkles with insights and parallels; then Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are featured with a good identification of common themes and antecedents; finally, Charlotte’s last two novels – Shirley and Villette – where we notice how she changes in her later years, and how she differs from Thackeray and Gaskell. The other five chapters are on major themes: Haworth – a first‐class essay this, which dispels many of the myths fostered by Mrs Gaskell; the Victorian cult of “good character” and “getting on” and how these are exemplified in the Brontë novels; the chapter “Women Writers and Women’s Issues” takes us back to the early Victorian background and the struggle women had to be independent; the Brontës and Religion is a touch flippant in places, but does a good job in re‐centering the religious context to the Brontës life and works; and finally the Brontë myth is considered – a fascinating account of how film, literature and the tourist trail continue the Brontë story. The book contains a brief index, a comprehensive further reading list, a few (rather poor) illustrations, and is immaculately produced and proof‐read.
Now and then the authors lapse into wordiness – chiasmus, spasmins, macaronic, plangent and proleptically – and academese – “post‐laparian world,” “Hemansesque,” “a lexis of repression” and “Thackerayan commonality,” for there is always a danger in such a book of like‐minded academics writing for each other and forgetting those of us outside academe, but generally the essays stimulate and provoke, they are well‐structured, well‐argued and insightful. The authors are deeply versed in their subjects and are good at exploring ideas and making the reader aware of underlying themes. The work is never stuffy or patronizing, and the reader will re‐read the novels and poems with new knowledge and enjoyment. A book for general and undergraduate collections.
