Reproduction of a water-colour drawing of dog "Keeper" by Emily Brontë. Now in the Brontë Museum (Wood, facing p. 256). Herbert Wroot writes:

A drawing by Emily of her faithful and much loved bull-dog Keeper — who himself played his part in Shirley and is remembered as having broken-heartedly followed his young mistress's coffin into the very church — this is priceless. [Wroot 132]

Athough the mastiff is asleep here, there is no doubt of his power. He is no lap-dog. As Barbara T. Gates says, Emily "preferred to draw wilder things than her sister [Charlotte]." Unsurprisingly, Gates continues, "Similar divergences may be discerned in the sisters' novels" (253).

Image scan and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the source, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one. Click on the image, or on the link below, for the review in which this image appears.

Related Material

Bibliography

Gates,Barbara T. "Natural History." In The Brontës in Context, ed. Marianne Thormählen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 250-60.

Wood, Butler, ed. Charlotte Brontë, 1816-1916; a centenary memorial, prepared by the Brontë society, with a foreword by Mrs. Humphry Ward and 3 maps and 28 illustrations. New York: Dutton, 1918. Internet Archive. Contributed by University of California Libraries. Web. 2 December 2017.

Wroot, Herbert. "The Brontë Society and Its Work." Wood 113-148.


Created 6 December 2017