Brontë Parsonage Museum

The museum is in the former Brontë family home, the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire, England, where the sisters spent most of their lives and wrote their famous novels.

[2][3] In 1820, Patrick Brontë was appointed incumbent of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth, and arrived at the parsonage with his wife Maria and six children.

Patrick Brontë was a published author of poetry and fiction and his children grew up accustomed to the sight of books carrying their family name on the parsonage shelves.

On 15 September 1821, Maria Brontë died of cancer, and her unmarried sister, Elizabeth Branwell, came to run the household, exchanging her home in Penzance for the harsh climate of a bleak northern township.

In 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne used part of their Aunt Branwell's legacy to finance the publication of their poems, concealing their true identities under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey had been accepted by the London publisher, Thomas Cautley Newby and appeared as a three-volume set in December 1847.

In 1893 the chief librarian of Bradford Library held a meeting suggesting that relics, letters and documents relating to the Brontës should be collected and preserved for posterity.

Henry Bonnell of Philadelphia bequeathed his collection to the society in 1926 and it was transferred to the parsonage when it opened, making it accessible to Brontë scholars.