Branwell Bronte: A Biography

2nd edition.  xii, 338pp.  Green cloth-covered boards with gilt titles on the spine.  8vo.  Cloth very slightly rubbed on corners and spine ends.  A previous owner’s name and date neatly inked on the front free endpaper else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original dust wrapper, not price clipped, shelf worn, bumped on extreme edges with some small chips on edges, unevenly faded, especially over the spine.  Dust wrapper protected in a Mylar-style protective sleeve. 

A major literary biography examining the troubled life of Patrick Branwell Bronte, the only brother of the literary sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.  First published in 1961, just a year after Daphne du Maurier’s better known ‘The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte’, Gerin focusses more closely on Branwell’s circumstances and inner psychological, including the long-term effects of the loss of his older sister, Maria, in childhood.  Well researched and heavily evidenced on Branwell’s own writings, Gerin charts his decline into alcoholism and drug addition rather than feeding the Byronic romantic mythology that often surrounds the man.  Long out of print and now hard to find.