Conclusion: The Trials of Lucy Snowe

Abstract

The first edition of Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Bronte was published by Smith Elder in March 1857. It was a considerable success, the initial print run of just over 2200 copies sold out in a month. Another 2200 were produced by early May. On the 26th May, however, all unsold copies were recalled. The reason for this sudden turn of events was one particular passage in chapter thirteen. It addressed the peculiar circumstance of Branwell’s hurried departure from his employment as tutor to the Robinson children at Thorp Green Hall. The reason, Gaskell opined, was his taking ‘the fancy of a married woman, nearly twenty years older than him’, one ‘so bold and hardened, that she did it in the very presence of her children, fast approaching to maturity’. Poor Branwell was dismissed when the husband of this ‘mature and wicked woman’ found them in a compromising position. A ‘black gloom’ descended on the ‘brightest hope’ of the family, never to be raised (Gaskell, 1997, pp. 205–6). Still haunted by his ‘yearning love’, his peace of mind further disturbed by her later pleas that they should elope together, but equally devoured by his sense of guilt at committing such a ‘deadly crime’, Branwell descended into drugs, debt and an early death (Gaskell, 1997, pp. 211, 213–14).