Compassionate and knowledgeable ... Yaron Matras is an authority on gypsies

Sparky and thought-provoking ... required reading for anyone who presumes to have views on Romani Gypsies

Elegantly written, consistently perceptive...[Harman] succeeds in bringing Charlotte back to life in all her spiky vulnerability

Superb retelling of Charlotte's story (...) admirably concise

Harman... portrays Bronte's complexity and dark genius in elegant prose with deep human sympathy

Harman tells [Charlotte's] story with quick wit, a sharp sympathy, and a fire and fury of her own

Harman's sane, unshowy re-telling is exactly right for the bicentenary next April. It gathers up the best of what has been written before and deals tactfully and decisively with the sillier aspects of the Bronte mythology. The result is a retooled classic biographical narrative, shipshape and serviceable for the next 200 years

Full of pleasing and piquant detail, scraps of passing recollection assembled from the various lives and letters in which the Brontes featured and from which we might reconstruct their world

Elegant, sensitive, beautifully paced and moving. [Claire Harman] has... produced a work that is affirmative, edifying, inspiring and humane

Revelatory (...) adds freshness and texture to her account with original speculations. As someone who once wrote a book about the Brontës' afterlives, few people can have read as many biographies of them as I have. I thought I was Brontë-ed out, but reading this book-which will be equally accessible to someone coming to Charlotte for the first time-has drawn me back in

Three rounds of applause...for Claire Harman's superb retelling of Charlotte's story

[An] excellent new bicentennial biography....Ms. Harman writes with warmth and a fine understanding of Ms. Brontë's literary significance. Above all, she is a storyteller, with a sense of pace and timing, relish for a good scene and a wry sense of humour

A vigorous new biography (...) Harman does a splendid job

An immensely readable biography

A substantial biography (...) that lets the disparate pieces speak for themselves

Harman renders her daring novels fresh, interweaving what shocked critics then with what surprises us still

Prepare to suffer similar time-loss at the hands of Harman, Brontë's most recent biographer and a master storyteller in her own right. Level-headed, highly readable and always intelligent, Harman's account of Brontë's life and work is a delight from start to finish

A subtle, measured biography, full of insight into Bronte's fiery intellect as well as the tragic intensity of her experience

Harman brings a fresh eye to many of the same papers studied by Gaskell to compile her Charlotte Brontë: A Life. The Gothic atmosphere and heart-breaking details remain, but Harman achieves a great feat by making the story seem new again

Gripping, constantly surprising: a page-turner. We hear at first hand the life stories of women from different walks of life, from factory workers to debs. Each story draws you right in and it's always a wrench to move on

A sparkling and fascinating account

Well-paced narrative...of great relevance today, when such conflicts seem (but only seem) to have disappeared.

Immensely compelling

Meticulously researched

The true strength of this meticulously researched book is the placing of the revelations into the context of a compelling human drama

Engrossing

[An] outstanding treasure of literature

Impeccably researched, and moving, this book breaks new ground