In The Work Of The Bronte Family, Where Is The Kingdom Of Angria?
The four Bronte children –Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne – spent much of their free time creating and describing imaginary worlds. This began with a box of toy soldiers given to Branwell; the children immediately began to use the soldiers as characters in a fictional world called Glasstown. This gradually evolved into Angria, about which Charlotte and Branwell were to write hundreds of stories in tiny books. Angria was a thoroughly imagined parallel world with its own wars, alliances, political and romantic intrigues. Emily and Anne meanwhile created their own “world”, the Northern land of Gondal. These “plays” as the Brontes called them , continued well into adulthood. Charlotte and Branwell in particular wrote letters in which they continued the saga of Angria or “the world below.” In a sense they never left the kingdom, for characters in Charlotte and Emily’s novels show strong ties to the Angria and Gondal words in their language and actions.
