In my late teens, I read nearly every Charlotte Brontë biography in the cannon, except the most famous one: the one written by her friend, fellow author Elizabeth Gaskell. I skipped it for a few reasons. One, every contemporary biography essentially ransacks Gaskell's work, citing it every three pages or so. So, I kind of felt like I'd already read it. Second, Brontë biographies were my introduction to "Mrs. Gaskell" and they didn't paint her in the best light. Most 20th century Brontë biographers see Gaskell as having written a hyper-glossed apologetic for Charlotte's feminine merits, highlighting wherever possible, no matter how illogical, that Brontë was a model daughter and housekeeper. I assumed therefore that "Mrs Gaskell" was ashamed of Charlotte's passionate nature and literary ventures, and was trying to bury them under a safe Victorian "angel in the house" motif.

Fifteen years later, having read some of Gaskell's fiction, I know that couldn't be the case. Gaskell was anything but ashamed of strong women or iconoclasts. So was what Brontë biographers implied true? It was time to find out for myself.

First of all, the greatest challenge (for me) reading Gaskell's Life of Brontë is that I've never read 19th century biography. It is one behemoth of a genre, and one that few of us have context for anymore. Back in the day, it seemed the great past time (or duty) of every great writer was to eulogize other great writers with epic biographies. If you want to explore some of these, Charlotte Brontë herself suggests "for biography, read Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Southey's Life of Nelson, Lockhart's Life of Burns, Moore's Life of Sheridan, Moore's Life of Byron," and so on. So entering Gaskell's Life of Brontë is to some extent, an expedition into the world of those leather-bound tomes full of dates, correspondences, and panegyrics from one great author to another. As one who reads 150 year-old fiction on a nonstop basis, this genre still felt quite foreign.

In persevering, though, I found some things well worth the search. I read the Oxford Classics edition and highly recommend it for its notes. The main challenge in reading, is that Gaskell is bound both by Victorian propriety and by perceived obligation to her friend Charlotte, to protect both her privacy and her reputation. Thus, no juicy bits or suppositions about what's happening in-between the lines of her letters (and life). But the Oxford notes offer great annotations and corrections when possible. That enervating habit of 19th century authors to blank out names of people and places, gets filled in by flipping to the end notes. Hallelujah. (Though this did triple the length of reading time).

I still felt pretty distant from the Charlotte Brontë presented in the pages. The version of her you get is so much Gaskell's redaction, that despite 70% of the text being letters from Brontë's own hand, it still feels emotionally and contextually distant, (at least for this modern reader). But that's likely a genre and context issue. It's clear that Gaskell wanted Brontë's critics to know that the author of Jane Eyre, Shirley and Villette was an unassuming and unpretentious woman who lived a quiet life of suffering and struggle, and who shied away from fame. Against Brontë's detractors who accused her pseudonymous "Currer Bell" of being "course" and "un-Christian," Gaskell displays the deep moral and spiritual convictions, reservedness and compassion that epitomized this Yorkshire curate's daughter.

Though Gaskell's Life of Brontë is perhaps less illuminating of Brontë's relationships and life choices than is contemporary scholarship, the work is indeed, as Charlotte's father Rev Patrick Brontë said, "in every way worthy of what one great woman should have written of another."

What I enjoyed most was the amount of correspondence time Brontë takes in recommending and critiquing literature. Her relationship with her publishers turned into what seemed a perpetual book club of trading books and reviews. And what sticks out so often is that Brontë rarely mentions plot construction, setting or even language. Her responses almost always center on what the author uncovers or expresses of true human nature, or how the heart and mind of the author is revealed in their writing. That's how I read Brontë's writing as well. Not surprising then that it was in these passages that I got the clearest sense of who this woman was, and as a result, drew nearer to her.

Gaskell's Life of Brontë is a must-read for any Brontë devotee, even if only to gain respect and sympathy for the short and impacting friendship shared by two culture-shaping women, who could never have predicted the reach of their legacies. This is Elizabeth mourning the loss of her friend Charlotte, in the kindest way she could think of. It's much appreciated.