The novels of sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë caused a stir in the Victorian cultural scene in the mid-19th century. At a time when marriage was the only desirable goal for middle-class women and professional careers were closed to them, the Brontë heroines dared to take their lives into their own hands. Just as captivating as their novels, the biographies of the three clergymen's daughters intrigued literary contemporaries from Thackeray to Arno Schmidt. In this beautifully curated volume, Elsemarie Maletzke and Christel Schütz create a portrait of the "three dove-gray sisters" (Arno Schmidt) using writings, letters, critiques, drawings, photographs, and testimonies from contemporaries.