The Life of Charlotte Bronte. by Mrs. Gaskell, Introduction and Notes By: Clement K. Shorter: Illustrated with Portraits and Views. Clement King Shorter (19 July 1857 - 19 November 1926) Was a British Journalist and Literary Critic.

The Life of Charlotte Bront� is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Bront� by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. The first edition was published in 1857 by Smith, Elder & Co.. A major source was the hundreds of letters sent by Bront� to her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey.Gaskell had to deal with some sensitive issues. She toned down some of her material: in the case of her description of the Clergy Daughters' School, attended by Charlotte and her sisters, this was to avoid legal action from the Rev. William Carus Wilson, the founder of the school. The published text does not go so far as to blame him for the deaths of two Bront� sisters, but even so the Carus Wilson family published a rebuttal with the title "A refutation of the statements in 'The life of Charlotte Bronte,' regarding the Casterton Clergy Daughters' School, when at Cowan Bridge".Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Constantin H�ger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to contemporary morals and a possible source of distress to Charlotte's still-living friends, father Patrick Bront� and husband.[1] She also suppressed any reference to Charlotte's romance with George Smith, her publisher, who was also publishing the biographyCharlotte Bronte ( 21 April 1816 - 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Bront� sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels have become classics of English literature. She first published her works (including her best known novel, Jane Eyre) under the pen name Currer Bell.Charlotte was born in Thornton, west of Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1816, the third of the six children of Maria (n�e Branwell) and Patrick Bront� (formerly surnamed Brunty or Prunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820 her family moved a few miles to the village of Haworth, where her father had been appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels Church. Maria died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and a son, Branwell, to be taken care of by her sister, Elizabeth Branwell.Clement King Shorter (19 July 1857 - 19 November 1926) was a British journalist and literary critic.