'Read it for Barker's understanding of the human drama' Independent

Juliet Barker is best known for her ground-breaking bestselling biography, THE BRONTES (1994), which won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award. She trained as an historian at Oxford University and was curator of the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth for six years. In 1999 she was one of the youngest ever recipients of an Honorary Doctorate of Letters. She lives in the South Pennines.

The child is father of the man, pre-1770-83; a poor, devoted crew, 1784-7; squandered abroad, 1787-90; a vital interest, 1790-92; a patriot of the world, 1793-4; benighted heart and mind, 1794-6; a sett of violent democrats, 1796-9; the giant Wordsworth, 1798-9; the concern, 1799-1800; home at Grasmere, 1800-1802; the set is broken, 1802-5; acquiring the quiet mind, 1805-6; the convention of Cintra, 1807-9; the blessedest of men! 1 809-11; suffer the little children, 181-12; the excursion, 1813-14; increasing influence, 1814-16; Bombastes Furioso, 1817-20; a tour of the continent, 1820-22; Idle Mount, 1823-6; shades of the prison-house, 1826-9; furiously alarmist, 1829-33; falling leaves, 1833-6; coming home, 1836-9; real greatness, 1939-42; Poet Laureate, 1842-5; fixed and irremovable grief, 1845-7; bowed to the dust, 1847-50. Epilogue -1850-59. Abbreviations of names used in notes; abbreviations of sources used in notes.