Campbell, Jessica. The Brontës and the Fairy Tale. Ohio UP, 2024.

Abstract

Do people ever fully outgrow the fairy tales of their childhood? Jessica Campbell makes the case that, at least for the Brontës, the answer is a resounding no. While scholars have studied the impact that fairy tales had on their juvenilia for years, Campbell argues that fairy tales influenced the siblings beyond their childhood kingdoms and into the realist fiction of their adulthood. She demonstrates that fairy tales proved to be flexible models upon which they could base complex novels.