The essence of the Brontes: a compilation with essays

Muriel Spark always regarded the Bronts with a novelists eye.

As Boyd Tonkin argues in his lively introduction, written for this new edition, the Bronts inspired Spark at the very beginning of her own career, but not in a straightforward way.

Through her critical and biographical work on the Bronts Spark identified not only their achievements but also their flaws and failings, and thereby began to define, as Tonkin puts it, her own best route.

As she herself said, in a piece recorded for the BBC at Emily Bronts grave in 1961, I was fascinated by [Emilys] creative mind because its so entirely alien to my own.

This book, first published in 1993, collects Sparks essays on the Bronts, her selection of their letters and of Emilys poetry.

Evident throughout are Sparks critical intelligence, dry wit, and refusal to sentimentalise qualities that gave her own novels their particular appeal.

At the same time, The Essence of the Bronts is Muriel Sparks tribute to the sisters whose talents placed them on a stage from where they could hypnotize their own generation and, even more, posterity.