In this unique and lovingly detailed biography, Victorian literature scholar Deborah Lutz illuminates the fascinating lives of the Brontës through the things they wore, stitched, and inscribed. Lutz immerses readers in a nuanced re-creation of the sisters’ days while moving us chronologically through their lives. From the miniature books they made as children to the walking sticks they carried on hikes on the moors, each possession opens a window onto the sisters’ world, their beloved fiction, and the Victorian era.
Deborah Lutz is the author of six books, including This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, A Life and The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects, which was shortlisted for the PEN/Weld Award for Biography. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library, and has twice been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships. She teaches Victorian literature and culture at Pennsylvania State University as the George and Barbara Kelly Professor in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature. Past honors include fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Mellon Foundation. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Cabinet Magazine, and many other venues, and she is the editor of two Norton Critical Editions—Jane Eyre and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.