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Written with an attention to detail and historical veracity, We Wove A Web In Childhood is a compelling dramatic reconstruction of the lives of the Bronte family. Much of the existing literature on the Brontes tends to focus exclusively on the sisters, but Ruth Thomas has succeeded in bringing each family member to life, including their brilliant and volatile brother Branwell, and their scholarly and compassionate father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte. Although the author has drawn on established biographical sources, the book was primarily conceived as a work of creative fiction: thus real events provide the basis for invented scenes and dialogue, and extracts from actual correspondence are seamlessly interwoven with fabricated journal entries and vividly imagined episodes. Some of the escapades are pure fiction - such as when Emily impersonates a man in order to accompany her brother to The Black Bull Tavern - and the suggestion that Arthur Bell Nicholls may have had darker motives in proposing to Charlotte will inevitably provoke controversy. Other incidents, like the scene where the sexton John Brown and his brother carry Branwell home after finding him lying insensible on the cobbled street after a drinking spree ring quite true. The writer successfully manages to get inside the heads of the Brontes, whose individual lives are as full of interest and drama as any of the novels they produced, and the family continues to exert a fascination right across the spectrum from dedicated Bronte fans to more casual readers. In focusing on the shifting family dynamics, the claustrophobic atmosphere at Haworth parsonage is skilfully evoked, and the book should appeal to anyone with a love of literature, and an interest in the peculiar and tortuous mental processes by which it is shaped.
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