Introduction: picturing Charlotte Brontë

This introduction explores the circulation and appropriation of Charlotte Brontë’s image, from her professional portrait sketched by George Richmond in 1850, through to the re-discovery of Branwell’s family portraits in the early twentieth century and a host of subsequent discoveries, forgeries and adaptations. Recognisable iconography is a valuable commodity, but Brontë portraiture must (re-)construct Charlotte’s image from the evidence and narratives of a dual biographical tradition, caught between competing claims and representations of private domesticity and public authorship. Brontë’s face may now seem familiar to public audiences, but she is a mutable and malleable icon: she is constantly seen anew, bespeaking our persistent desire to re-imagine her life and work. Brontë’s bicentenary in 2016 provides the cue and occasion for a critical re-assessment of these legacies and cultural afterlives, and this introduction concludes with a survey of research themes identified and explored by the collection’s contributors.