1818

July 30, Emily Jane Bronte born at Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire.

1820

April, the Bronte family moves to Haworth.

1821

September, Mrs. Bronte dies.

1824

November, Emily Bronte enrolls at the Cowan Bridge School.

1825

May 6, Maria Bronte dies; June 1, Charlotte and Emily leave Cowan Bridge; June 15 Elizabeth Bronte dies.

1826

June, Mr. Bronte brings home twelve wooden soldiers for Branwell--the start of the Btontes' oral literature and imaginative games.

1831

Emily and Anne begin the Gondal saga.

1834

November 24, the earliest dated Emily Bronte manuscript--mentions the Gondals discovering Caaldine.

1835

July--Octobet, a pupil in Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head; is sent home after alarming Charlotte with her physical decline.

1836

July 12, the earliest dated poem.

1837

September, goes to teach at Law Hill School, near Halifax; remains there for about six months--the exact dates of the Law Hill period are disputed.

1838-1842

Over half of Bronte's surviving poems written.

1842

February--November, at school in Brussels with Charlotte to study music and foreign languages; writes the essays in French; returns to Haworth after the death of Aunt Branwell.

1843

Alone at Haworth with her father; a time of creativity and freedom.

1844

Begins to arrange her poems into two notebooks, dividing the Gondalan from the non-Gondalan material.

1845

The Brontes give up hopes for a school of their own; Branwell, working on a novel, tells his sisters of the profitable possibilities of novel writing; Emily's birthday note shows her hearty and content, reunited with Anne and as enthusiastic as ever about the Gondalans; October, Charlotte discovers Emily's poems and convinces her sister to collaborate on a volume of poems; December, Wuthering Heights begun.

1846

May, Poems by Currer Ellis, and Acton Bell published, with the Brontes paying for costs; July, Wuthering Heights finished and begins to make the round of publishers, along with Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte and The Profrssor by Charlotte; September 14, last dated complete poem.

1847

July, T. C. Newby accepts Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey but delays publishing until the success of Jane Eyre arouses interest in the "Bells"; December, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey published.

1848

Confusion in the literary world over the identity and number of the Bells; Anne publishes The Tenant of Wildftll Hall; Emily withdraws more resolutely into herself; September 24, Branwell dies; October 1, Emily leaves home for the last time to attend Branwell's funeral service--catches a severe cold which develops into inflammation of the lungs; December 19, Emily Bronte dies.

1850

Wuthering Heights reissued, with a selection of poems, and a biographical notice by Charlotte.

1893

The Bronte Society established.

1941

Hatfield's edition of The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte published.

(This extract is taken from Richard Benvenuto, Emily Bronte [Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982])