Book excerpt: "This book has as its subject the manipulation of a reputation." "Its starting point is Charlotte Bronte's attempt to manage her own and her sisters' public image in the face of Victorian prejudice against their passionate novels. Their first biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, transformed their story of literary ambition into one of the great legends of the nineteenth century, a dramatic tale of three lonely sisters playing out their tragic destiny on top of a windswept moor. Lucasta Miller reveals where this image came from and how it took such a hold on the popular imagination." "Since 1857, hardly a year has gone by without some sort of Bronte 'biography' appearing."