Emily Bronte, born Haworth, Yorkshire 1818; died Haworth 1848.
Emily remains the most enigmatic of the Brontes, an impression only deepened by her only substantial novel Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights, released in the same year as her sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre, enjoyed nothing like the success, and indeed met ïncomprehension as readers were not prepared for the levels of violence, the forthright language, or the sheer technical brilliance of the book. Emily's response to her apparent lack of success, like so much of her character, remains enigmatic. It was only after her death that it became widely considered a masterpiece.
She is now also recognised as one of the most original poets of the century, e.g. ('The night is darkening around me), for her passionate invocations from the world of Gondal ('Remembrance', The Prisoner'), and her apparently more personal 'visionary moments ('No coward soul is mine').
`No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.'
No Coward Soul is Mine by Emily Bronte
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Sixth edition, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 137-138
Payne, Tom. "Bronte, Emily." A-Z of Great Writers, Carlton Books, 1997, p. 54