The hand of the arch-sinner

For almost 150 years, the writings of Branwell Bronte, the notoriously self-destructive brother of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, have remained largely inaccessible, scattered in incomplete manuscript form across the world's libraries and private collections. This is the first publication of the longest of Branwell's surviving manuscripts, 'The Life of. . . Northangerland' and 'Real Life in Verdopolis'. A prolific writer, Branwell cast his works in the form of 'chronicles' detailing the activities of his central character, Alexander Percy, revolutionary leader and ruthless statesman. These two 'Angrian Chronicles', newly transcribed and reconstructed under the editorship of Robert G. Collins, reveal the dramatic world of the Brontes' Angria, not from the more sentimentalized viewpoint of Charlotte, but focusing instead on the lawless and brutal society of Branwell's robber-king and self-proclaimed Lucifer. The stories suggest a detailed psychological description of Branwell's own tragic life, and constitute a significant influence on the work of his more celebrated sisters. Read for their own narrative interest, their biographical relevance, and for the many ways in which they reflect aspects of the novels his sisters later wrote, the two 'Angrian Chronicles' reveal an astonishing and neglected talent in the fourth Bronte.