Background material for The House of Dead Maids
By Clare B. Dunkle. New York: Henry Holt, 2010. 146 p.

For those who wish to learn more about the background of The House of Dead Maids, I have written a number of web pages dealing with my research into the Brontë family and Wuthering Heights. You may reach all of those pages by clicking on the links below:

Tabby's World: A Photographic Exploration of Haworth and Yorkshire

The Mysteries of Wuthering Heights

The Literary Motifs and Techniques ofWuthering Heights

Breaking barriers, crossing boundaries

Deep inside the house: the moor

Impersonal personal names

Twinnings/battles to the death

The plundered nest

The coffin/bed

The eternal rocks beneath

The most reliable of unreliable narrators

The ghost

Musings on Heathcliff

Nelly and Joseph: Yorkshire Spirits

"Rougue": Branwell's Pirate

Brontë Myths: Fact or fiction?

Emily Brontë was a passive visionary who wrote what her muse led her to write.

Emily Brontë was too eccentric to thrive away from home.

Emily Brontë loved her brother Branwell more than the others did.

Emily Brontë willed her own death.

Emily Brontë was anorexic.

Emily Brontë had a secret lover.

Emily Brontë loved animals more than people.

Branwell Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights.

Patrick Brontë was cruel and morose.

Charlotte Brontë burned Emily's second novel.

Some Criticisms of My Prequel (and My Responses)

Reader Questions