Michael Stewart has been captivated by the Brontës since he was a child, and has travelled all over the north of England in search of their lives and landscapes. Now, he’d like to invite you into the world as they would have seen it.
Following in the footsteps of the Brontës across meadow and moor, through village and town, award-winning writer Michael Stewart takes a series of inspirational walks through the lives and landscapes of the Brontë family, investigating the geographical and social features that shaped their work.
This is a literary study of both the social and natural history that has inspired writers and walkers, and the writings of a family that have touched readers for generations. Finally we get to understand the ‘wild, windy moors’ that Kate Bush sang about in ‘Wuthering Heights’, see the imposing halls that may have inspired Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre, and learn about Bramwell’s affair with a real life Mrs Robinson while treading the same landscapes. As well as describing in vivid detail the natural beauty of the moors and their surroundings, Walking the Invisible also encompasses the history of the north and the changing lives of those that have lived there.
If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure about Walking the Invisible when it first landed on the doormat. Whilst I have a passing interest in literary lives, I wasn’t sure how much a part-memoir, part-biography, part-walking guide of the live of the Brontë family would resonate with someone who can only claim to have set foot in Yorkshire a handful of times and generally prefers my walking to be by way of a good tea room.
I completely did not expect, then, to be utterly immersed by Michael Stewart’s blend of literary biography, meditative nature writing, walking tour, and northern history. As co-creator of the Brontë Stones project – which saw poems about each Brontë sibling carved onto stones and set into the landscape in and around Thornton and Haworth – Stewart knows the landscape around the Brontë family’s homes intimately, and shares their passion for its wild majesty.
As a working-class lad educated at a run-down comprehensive in Salford, however, he is also keenly aware of the differences between the imagined ‘North’ that is so often romanticised by Brontë aficionados – and sought out by literary tourists from across the globe – and the often harsh realities of life in the industrialised towns and isolated villages around which the Brontë siblings lived and worked. His walking accounts frequently juxtapose the breath-taking beauty of the landscape and the generosity of its people with the lived realities of run-down farms, fly-tipping, rural poverty, and cold, unrelenting rain.
Nor does Stewart romanticise the lives of the Brontë family themselves. As he follows the siblings from Thornton and Haworth into Derbyshire, across to Cumbria, and up to Scarborough, he vividly imagines both the triumphs and the tragedies of their lives. From Bramwell’s doomed love for a married woman, to Emily’s tenure as a school mistress and Anne’s final visit to her beloved Scarborough, each member of the family is conjured onto the page through their imagined interactions with the landscape around them.
At the end of the book Stewart includes several walks inspired by each of the siblings. Ranging from an easy 4-mile loop around Thornton to a bracingly strenuous 14.5 mile romp across the moors, there’s something for everyone and come complete with well-illustrated maps and clear step-by-step instructions. The majority of the walks take in at least one of the Brontë Stones, as well as many of the other places said to have inspired the family’s writings.
Walking the Invisible is not an easy book to categorise but its an absorbing one to read. Stewart’s love for and knowledge of the Brontë family, and of the landscapes that inspired them, comes across on the page and the blend of literary history, contemporary travelogue, and meditative reflection, although unusual, makes for an intelligently written and evocative read. I’m currently in the process of working my way through the Brontë family’s oeuvre and am hoping to rectify my ignorance of ‘Brontë Country’ in the not-too-distant future. When I do, I will be taking Walking the Invisible as my own guide for following the footsteps of this remarkable literary family.
Walking the Invisible by Michael Stewart is published by HQ and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Wordery.
If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, The Big Green Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, and Berts Books.
My thanks go to the publisher for providing me with a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.
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