My Review: The Invention of Charlotte Brontë: A New Life by Graham Watson

 

Charlotte Brontë had a life as seemingly dramatic as her heroine Jane Eyre. Turning her back on her tragic past, Charlotte reinvented herself as an acclaimed author, a mysterious celebrity, and a passionate lover. Doing so meant burning many bridges, but her sudden death left her friends and admirers with more questions than answers.

Tasked with telling the truth about Brontë’s life, her friend, the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, uncovered secrets of illicit love, family discord, and professional rivalries more incredible than any fiction. The result, a tell-all biography, was so scandalous it was banned and rewritten twice in six months—but not before it had given birth to the legend of the Brontës.

The Invention of Charlotte Brontë presents a different, darker take on one of the most famous women writers of the nineteenth century, showing Charlotte to be a strong but flawed individual. Through evaluating key events as well as introducing new archival material into the story, this lively biography challenges the established narrative to reveal the Brontë family as they’ve never been seen before.

• Publisher: Pegasus Books (August 5, 2025)
• Length: 288 pages
• ISBN13: 9781639369355

Marriage certainly makes a difference in some things and amongst others the disposition and consumption of time. I really seem to have had scarcely a spare moment... Not that I have been hurried or oppressed but the fact is my time is not my own now, somebody else wants a good portion of it and says we must do so and so. We do 'so and so' accordingly, and it generally seems the right thing-only I sometimes wish that I could have written the letter as well as taken the walk.

My life is changed indeed:  to be wanted continually, to be constantly called for and occupied seems so strange:  yet it is a marvellously good thing. As yet I don't quite understand how some wives grow so selfish. As far as my experience of matrimony goes, I think it tends to draw you out of and away from yourself. (Mrs. Nicholls aka Charlotte Bronte) 

Graham Watson focuses on the last five years (1850-1855) of the life of Charlotte Bronte who becomes Charlotte Nicholls. In this debut biography, the reader meets the friend circle of Charlotte Bronte:  Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriett Martineau, Kay Shuttleworth and Ellen Nussey. You will get to know who is a trusted friend of Charlotte Bronte and who is not. The relationship between Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell is key because of the first biography Gaskell will write and publish in 1857 two years after the death of her friend.  The reader is left to form their own opinion regarding Charlotte's individual friendship with each of them which is an aspect of the biography that I truly enjoy.  Currer Bell is brought into the frame while Charlotte Bronte is the last of her sisters to have her novels published. Aspects of Jane Eyre and Villette are discussed in various chapters. The Jane Eyre connection with a certain Mr. Thackeray shows the fangirl side of Charlotte Bronte. In 1853, Charlotte read a review of Villette posing the question, "What kind of circumstances produced women in revolt like Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe?" Charlotte wrote a letter replying in explanation to answer his question. I absolutely loved the letter excerpts that author, Graham Watson uses throughout, The Invention of Charlotte Bronte: A New Life. There is nothing better than reading the words of Charlotte Bronte herself in various situations and aspects of the last years of her single and brief married life. 

It was heartbreaking yet fascinating reading about the aspects of Charlotte Bronte and Rev. Patrick Bronte's life together, just the two of them in the parsonage.  Patrick Bronte is ailing and aging while Charlotte Bronte takes care of him all the while becoming a published author and wife of the man that her father is hell bent against her marrying. I am so glad Charlotte didn't listen to her father and for a very brief few moments was truly loved as a woman and wife. 

Graham Watson has shown us Charlotte Bronte as: Friend, Author, Daughter, and Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls as Wife.  The Invention of Charlotte Bronte: A New Life debut biography by Graham Watson is a treasure to behold. 

To purchase the book directly from the publisher, Simon & Schuster 

To purchase from, Amazon 

Interview with Graham Watson, author of The Invention of Charlotte Bronte

Graham Watson’s debut biography, The Invention of Charlotte Bronte blows the lid off of the myths that surround Charlotte Bronte’s life still today and during her lifetime. 

Published just six months ago, this debut biography has already been chosen as book of the year and best book for Christmas. I guess I can tell you that it’s also my book of the year as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  

Graham Watson is a specialist in the Brontës and Elizabeth Gaskell, and he is currently researching Victorian literary identities at the University of Glasgow. He has published a number of papers in Brontë Studies and has recently joined the journal’s peer-review board. This is his first book. Graham lives in Glasgow.

INTERVIEW WITH GRAHAM WATSON 

1) Have you always wanted to be a writer and published author? 

 

Yes, always. Writing has been essential since I was a child and when I grew up that eventually turned into work: I was an editor, book reviewer and a copywriter at various times but also had to do less literary work like working in shops and offices. The road to writing and being published is rarely straight. 

 

2) How did you come to focus on Charlotte Bronte and those specific years of her life (1850-1855)? 

 

Charlotte Brontë’s last five years are given comparatively little space in other biographies. I’vefound once biographers have covered the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne they seem to lose interest in Charlotte on her own and gloss over everything 1850-55 to hasten towards writing about her death, despite it being the era when the lives of the Brontë family became a story that reached the outside world. My book extends beyond that era into the years immediately afterwards when Elizabeth Gaskell was researching and writing her Life of Charlotte Brontë and how the media scandal itcaused turned Charlotte into a legend.

 

3) Why focus specifically on Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriett Martineau and Ellen Nussey? Did your research point to them or was it something else? 

 

My research led me in their direction. I wanted to show the living Charlotte Brontë and the mythic version, and how people who’d known her personally struggled to interact with both the living woman and her legend.Despite everyone having an opinion on her, few could agree on who she had been.

When Charlotte’s father asked Gaskell to write her lifeshe assumed he and Charlotte’s widower Arthur Bell Nicholls would be her main sources. But they refused to let her see Charlotte’s personal letters and were cagey and unreliable. Once she turned to Charlotte’s best friend, Ellen Nussey, she heard a very different take on Charlotte’s life. Harriet Martineau was a published writer who had been friends with both Charlotte and Elizabeth Gaskell but had mixed feelings about Charlotte as she’d fallen out with her by the time of her death. She became more hostile to Charlotte’s memory, thinking Charlotte had been a self-dramatizing fantasist until something was revealed to her that made her reconsider everything that she had ever thought about her. 

 

4) As you were researching and writing this book, was there someone who stood out to you or surprised you the most and why? 

 

What I discovered about George Smith, Charlotte’s publisher came as a surprise. I had always thought of him the way history has presented him to us, as a Prince Charming of publishing who changed Charlotte’s life and may even have had a romantic interest in her. None of that was true. I was dismayed to read the derisory comments he made about her behind her back, and once I researched his and William Thackeray’s professional relationship, I discovered George Smith had used Charlotte as the bait to sign Thackeray as the bigger client, discarding Charlotte when he felt she was no more commercial use to him. I was very pleased to find in the course of my research that Elizabeth Gaskell made it clear to him she was not as impressed by him as Charlotte had been.

​

5) Did Branwell Bronte come up in your research or findings at all? 

 

He did. I’m interested in him and uncovered a lot about him that I didn’t include in The Invention of Charlotte Brontë. While my book focuses on end of Charlotte’s life, I looked at the entire lives of the Brontë family, with my fingertip research covering the 10 years on either side of 1850.  To emphasise Charlotte’s isolation, I decided Branwell, Emily and Anne could not be living presences in my book – so there are no potted biographies of them or flashbacks to earlier eras – and that everything about them had to be anecdotal. Because by then they too were just stories.

 

6) What was your understanding of Charlotte Bronte before writing your book and how do you see her now after researching and writing about her life? 

 

My admiration for her strength and determination increased. I knew her as the iconic figure we’re all familiar with but research brings you closer to a subject than simply reading about them. I’m in awe of her now despite being more conscious of her shortcomings and flaws. 

 

7) What is your research process like and your writing process? 

 

I immersed myself in the archival material and read everything I could find that related to the Brontës and everyone associated with them. I think I managed to source and read every book and article about themwritten between 1858 and 1920, as well as selected books and journal papers published since, and extended my research from letters and manuscripts to daily newspapers, weather reports and railway timetables. Not all of it, of course, made it into my book. Writing it was obsessive and once I’d reached a certain point it felt unstoppable.

 

                   U.S. edition pre-order now

8) Congratulations on the U.S. publication of The Invention of Charlotte Brontë to be published in 2025. 

Thank you! I’m so excited for the book to come to the US and honoured to have it picked up by such an esteemed publishing house as Pegasus. It arrives inAugust 2025 but is already available for pre-order from Simon & Schuster.

For more information about the author in the United Kingdom , The History Press

For more information about the author’s United States publication, Simon and Schuster

To purchase a copy, Amazon UK

Book Review: The Invention of Charlotte Brontë. Her Last Years and the Scandal That Made Her By Graham Watson

Doomed survivor of a family of geniuses, Charlotte Brontë had a life as dramatic as Jane Eyre. Turning her back on her tragic past, she reinvented herself as an acclaimed writer, a mysterious celebrity and a passionate lover. Doing so meant burning many bridges, but her sudden death left her friends and admirers with more questions than answers.

Tasked with telling the truth about Brontë’s life, her friend, the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, uncovered secrets of illicit love, family discord and professional rivalries more incredible than any fiction. The result, a tell-all biography, was so scandalous it was banned and rewritten twice in six months – but not before it had given birth to the legend of the Brontës.

The Invention of Charlotte Brontë is a darker take on one of the most famous women writers of the nineteenth century, showing Charlotte to be a strong but flawed individual. Through interrogating known events and introducing new archival material into the story, it challenges the established narrative to reveal the Brontë family as they’ve never been seen before.

Father, I am not a young girl, not a young woman even. I never was pretty. I now am ugly. At your death I shall have £300 besides the little I have earned myself. Do you think there are many men who would serve seven years for me?   

Graham Watson's debut book:   Add this book to your research shelves everyone!  

Finally, readers of Charlotte Bronte now have a definitive research book covering the last years of her life (1850-1855). Graham Watson lets Charlotte Bronte's loved ones speak for themselves by including letter excerpts from Charlotte herself, her father and husband. 

As the book opens, Charlotte is the surviving Bronte sibling left to care for her aging father, Rev. Patrick Bronte. She also struggles with being known in her own lifetime as a published author of Jane Eyre and Villette. Although, there were numerous obstacles in the way of Charlotte marrying Arthur Nicholls they were put there by Charlotte and her father themselves. Luckily, in the end Charlotte would have her wedding and sadly very brief marriage as Mrs. Nicholls. 

One aspect of the book that surprised and shocked me was Charlotte's circle of female friends she kept during her lifetime. Author, Graham Watson includes three very specific women:  Ellen Nussey, Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriett Martineau. Now, Ellen Nussey was Charlotte's lifelong friend from childhood, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote the first controversial biographhy on Charlotte Bronte and Harriett Martineau I am not familiar with. 

You know that saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Well, unbeknownst to Charlotte, she had enemies disguised as friends who were very jealous of her since the publication of Jane Eyre. Sadly, it was Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriett Martineau who were the worst 'friends' taking every opportunity they could find to badmouth Charlotte in the press. I will say Harriett was 'evil' towards Charlotte and leave it at that. Graham Watson does a wonderful job giving varied information covering the rest of the lives of these three women up until and including their deaths. There is a lot to learn about  Arthur Nicholls as well and you see a side to Rev. Patrick Bronte that I don't think is usually covered.  

Readers can purchase the book directly from, The History Press