Emily Brontë

British · b. 1818

Emily Brontë published one novel, Wuthering Heights, under the name 'Ellis Bell,' scandalized Victorian critics with its violence, and died of tuberculosis a year later at 30 — refusing a doctor until her final hours. Reclusive even by Brontë standards, she left no letters, no explanations, and a single book wild enough to sustain two centuries of argument.