Item Condition: Used; Good
A drunken reprobate dying
at thirty-one from the result of his
oWn excesses? Modern eyes can
judge Branwell Brontë more gently than
his own despairing family.
We can recognize the epilepsy, the retreat
behind laudanum or alcohol, the
first shadows of schizophrenia; we can
understand the eclipsing sense of failure
in the precocious boy who'd grown to
a man who couldn't get one couplet published,
whose erratic behaviour couldn't hold
the humblest job.
Excluded out of misguided kindness from
his sisters' success, in the face of
the world's censure and his own shame,
Branwell returned to his seribbled
childhood world of wickedness and
Gothic adventure -the infernal world'
where he truly belonged.