I’ve read many books on the Brontës, from the sublime, such as the weighty fact filled biography by Juliet Barker and the series of books by Winifred Gerin, to the ridiculous where pages are spent describing the author’s car problems. Duke of Wellington – Based on the historical Duke of Wellington, he is Charlotte Brontë’s chief man in The Young Men’s Play. After building their first settlement – Twelves Town – they find themselves at war with the native Ashantee tribe. Written in dozens of miniature books, these manuscripts – with curious, secretive titles such as A Peep into a Picture Book, The Spell, A Leaf from an Unopened Volume – are not only an astonishing example of craftsmanship, but contain extraordinary, uncensored content". Through a combination of quotes from the stories originally penned by the Brontës, biographical information about them, and Greenberg’s vivid comic book illustrations, readers will find themselves enraptured by this fascinating imaginary world.

I have always thought that if anything lends itself so perfectly to graphic novels, it’s the sprawling, epic saga that is the Brontë juvenilia. The entrancing story of the Brontë sisters’ childhood imaginary world, from the New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. Glass Town is the perfect blend of historical fiction and fantasy and it will suck you into the reality and alternative reality the Brontë children lived in. The warring brothers would later reappear in Charlotte Brontë’s novel The Professor (published 1857) as the Crimsworths. In the Glass Town texts he is King of Wellingtonsland and leader of the four Kings of the Glass Town Federation.I have a wide interest in history ranging from Wars of the Roses, country houses, Stuarts, Georgians, Louis XIV, Napoleon and criminals. Originally maid to his mother, the Duchess of Wellington and then to his second wife, Marian Hume, Mina becomes Zamorna’s favourite and most loyal mistress, even acting as a mother figure to his young children following Marian’s death. In their collaborative early writings the Brontes created and peopled the most extraordinary fantasy worlds, whose geography and history they elaborated in numerous stories, poems, and plays. A devastated Charlotte later chose to resurrect her heroine in what must be another of literature’s earliest examples of retcon. Greenberg pulls Glass Town and its characters directly from the Brontës’ juvenilia, giving readers a look into the early creativity of an iconic literary family with a playful visual style that captures the Brontës’ enthusiasm as they discover what fiction can do.

Percy has many mistresses and is thrice married, firstly to the exotic Italian beauty Augusta di Segovia during a wayward youth spent drinking and gambling. A sociopathic princess, she posed one of the greatest threats to Aang and Zuko, before she inevitably became the cause of her own defeat. Things I couldn’t get past included the strange alterations to an almost unrecognisable Zenobia (here reluctant wife to Northangerland who first encounters Mary when they are both being courted by Zamorna and champion of the rights of women and the Ashantees) and Mary’s dead brothers (two of whom, the warring Edward and Sir William Percy, feature prominently in other stories from the saga and even make it into Charlotte’s adult novel The Professor as the Crimsworths).It’s a wonderful introduction to the essence of the Brontë juvenilia and some of the characters, if not a perfect introduction to the actual saga. At times depicted as a dandy alongside his friend Charles Townshend, the two eventually drift apart with Sir William occupying a more serious role in the stories and society Four children; Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne have invented a world so vivid that they can step right into it. Zamorna is awarded the Kingdom of Angria by the Verdopolitan government following his success in the War of Encroachment against the Ashantees.

Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg is available in hard back and Kindle editions, and is published by Jonathan Cape on 6 th February. It is in response to this loss that the four remaining Brontë children set pen to paper and created the fictional world that became known as Glass Town. It is the perfect combination of clever, crazy, and just a tiny bit creepy, and will appeal to anyone who has wondered about how imagination shapes us, as well as to card-carrying Bronte fans.

Sometimes they seem poised to burst forth from the page, defying physics in tribute to the seething spirits that gave us Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Much of the saga was formulated only in discussion amongst the creators; knowledge was assumed between the collaborators, who had no need to explain circumstances or background in individual stories". The art makes the book feel like it could have come from the same, early 19th century that it is set in.

Early characters were "literal transmogrifications of Wellington and Napoleon", however, the Brontës eventually "focused on developing two of their own characters [.

Glass Town is a book to savour, a captivating mash-up of fact and fantasy, with something wonderful on every page. In Miriam Pultro's 2021 meta rock musical, [35] Glass Town is a band the four Brontës have created together.