The Water Tower and Other Stories

All the seven Brontë novels are concerned with education in both senses, that of upbringing as well as that of learning. The Brontë sisters all worked as teachers before they became published novelists. In spite of the prevalence of education in the sisters' lives and fiction, however, this is the first full-length book on the subject. Marianne Thormählen explores how their representations of fictional teachers and schools engage with the intense debates on education in the nineteenth century, drawing on a wealth of documentary evidence about educational theory and practice in the lifetime of the Brontës. This study offers much new information both about the Brontës and their books and about the most urgent issue in early-nineteenth-century British social politics: the education of the people, of all classes and both sexes.

The Brontës and Education, hardback
The Brontës and Education, paperback

Reviews so far

'Compelling and unique ... This thoroughly researched volume looks at ... contemporaneous education controversies. Summing up: highly recommended.' Choice

'... writes with considerable panache and vigor. In this reviewer's experience the book makes a very enjoyable read not only for a scholar public but for a general audience as well'. www.bronteblog.blogspot.com.
Read the whole review at http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/bronts-and-education-review.html

'... crisp, objective and lively ... Thormählen triumphs in the light she shines on the educational world in which the family lived ... This book is an exciting helpmate in the struggle to secure a firm understanding of factors that fed the Brontë sisters' imaginative development ...' Brontë Studies

''Thormählen's prose is lucid yet sophisticated, each paragraph redolent with pithy thoughts and new twists on familiar truths ... Thormählen guides us sure-footedly ... [the notes constitute] a veritable textbook on early nineteenth-century education ... [The Brontës and Education is] a deeply satisfying work that enriches our appreciation of the Brontës and their world." Modern Philology

Around 1979, scholars adopted the term "modernism" as a designation for the radical changes that took place in Anglo-American literature in the early twentieth century. The concept lent prestige to works and authors associated with it, encouraging the development of a vast body of criticism while blocking academic recognition of literature to which it does not readily apply. In Rethinking Modernism, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003 and edited by Marianne Thormählen, fifteen scholars of modernism subject the concept to sceptical scrutiny as they revisit their special areas of expertise. The general question they all face is not so much "what was modernism?" -- a familiar question -- as "was/is modernism?" Their results show that although "modernism" remains a useful concept under certain conditions, for them -- as for any reader of this book -- modernism will never be quite the same again.
The book ends with a 20-page bibliography of works on modernism in two parts, compiled by the editor; the Literary Research/Recherche littéraire reviewer called it "comprehensive and invaluable". Other reviewers have praised the book as forming a "both focused and vigorous" volume (The Yearbook of English Studies) and as offering noteworthy "considerations of category breakers and the construction of categories by the reception of literary works" (The Review of English Studies).
https://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/rethinking-modernism-marianne-thormählen/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781403911803