Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre might never have been published without patriarch’s ‘dirty money’, says new book
The grandfather of the Brontë family has always been portrayed as a gentleman merchant and an upstanding figure of his Cornish community. But new research has revealed that Thomas Branwell was, in fact, involved with murderous smugglers and that without his dirty money his granddaughters Emily, Anne and Charlotte might never have published their famous novels.
Long before the birth of his grandchildren, Branwell was indicted for “obstructing the Customs Officers in searching his dwelling”, according to Custom House records of 1778.
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