The Brontë, Dickinson, Woolf... sisters, sometimes accomplices and often rivals

For the vulgum pecus, almost inseparable, they will remain for eternity “

”.

But who remembers Vanessa, Virginia Woolf's sister?

And what about Lavinia Dickinson, forgotten among the forgotten.

Several books and a few films recount the complicated relationship between these famous Anglo-Saxon novelists and their sisters.

Her first film, the Australian actress Frances O'Connor wanted to devote it exclusively, or almost, to Emily Brontë (1818-1848), the British author from

and the youngest of her siblings.

This literary classic, which is also the novelist's only book, is often drowned in a whole: that of the romantic work of the so-called "

" made up largely of two other classics,

written by Charlotte and

written by Anne.

Read alsoOur review of Emily: in the Brontë family, we ask for Emily

“

”, the film titled

wants to “

” on the only destiny of the novelist, who died at the age of thirty after a solitary existence in the rectory of Haworth in Yorkshire, where her father was a pastor.

" relationship

that Emily Brontë had with her sisters, and more particularly with the eldest, Charlotte.

“

”, underlines the director, whose scenario took liberties with reality but who claims to have “

”.

The filmmaker analyzes the origin of this difference in temperament: "

".

Despite this, Charlotte tried to protect her sisters.

“

Wuthering Heights

, ”says the director.

Frances O'Connor's

Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, her painter sister

Accomplices but rivals, this is how Laura Ulonati summarizes the relationship between Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and her older sister, the painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), in her book Double V,

in early January by Actes Sud. .

Here again, the book does not claim to be a biography but offers a romantic dive into the sources of the relationship between the two sisters.

If Vanessa "

", her life remained largely in the shadow of that of the writer of

and

.

And to go back, bibliography in support, the thread of a relationship nourished by rivalry.

Whether artistic (there can only be one genius in the family), loving or maternal.

Virginia had no children, Vanessa had three.

Rivalry fed by the obsession to obtain “

”, assures the author of

V.

Still, the two sisters have never left each other.

"

."

Admiration that comes to life in the portrait of Virginia painted by her eldest in 1912. And finally;

"

," concludes Laura Ulonati.

Lavinia Dickinson and... Emily Dickinson

Lavinia Dickinson also played a decisive role in the fame of her sister, the immense American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), as told by the Quebecer Dominique Fortier in Les ombres blanches, released in France in January by

.

Following

(Renaudot prize for the essay in 2020), where she "

it" the life of the "

", this second work between the novel and the essay looks back on the work of Lavinia, who had promised to burn Emily's poems after the disappearance, in the posthumous publication of her sister's manuscripts.

“

”, suggests Dominique Fortier, for whom “

.

But the role of Lavinia “

”.