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In the space of a year, the publisher of the Brontë sisters' first book sold two copies. Emily Brontë contributed twenty-one poems to it under the name Ellis Bell, and a reviewer still picked her out as the best of the three. Eighteen months later came Wuthering Heights, and a year after that she was dead, aged thirty. That is why the list of what she wrote is so short: one novel, one shared book of poems, and a much larger body of poetry that was only gathered together long after her death. This guide covers all three books in order, what else survives, and the question of a second novel.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 books · 1 novel · Female authors · 1846–1941 · Updated September 2026
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Quick answer
Emily Brontë wrote one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847). Her work appears in three books in total: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), which she shared with her sisters Charlotte and Anne and to which she contributed twenty-one poems; Wuthering Heights (1847), published under the pen name Ellis Bell; and The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (1941), which gathered around two hundred poems long after her death in 1848. No second novel survives.
Watch: In search of Emily Brontë
Quick facts about Emily Brontë
- Born
- 30 July 1818, Thornton, Yorkshire
- Died
- 19 December 1848, Haworth, aged 30
- Pen name
- Ellis Bell
- Novels
- One, Wuthering Heights (1847)
- Poems
- About 200 survive; 21 were published in her lifetime
- Publishers
- Aylott and Jones (Poems, 1846); Thomas Cautley Newby (Wuthering Heights, 1847)
- Sisters
- Charlotte (Currer Bell) and Anne (Acton Bell)
- School
- Cowan Bridge; Roe Head, briefly; the Heger Pensionnat in Brussels, 1842
- Worked
- Teacher at Law Hill School, Halifax, 1838–1839
- Remembered
- Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, where the family name was corrected to “Brontë” in 2024
All 3 Emily Brontë Books, in Order
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
The three sisters' first book in print, paid for out of their own pocket with money from their aunt Elizabeth Branwell's legacy. Charlotte (Currer Bell) contributed nineteen poems; Emily (Ellis Bell) and Anne (Acton Bell) contributed twenty-one each, and Emily adjusted some of hers to hide their origins in Gondal, the imaginary world she shared with Anne. In a year the publisher sold two copies. Yet a reviewer in The Athenaeum singled out Ellis Bell's poems as the best in the book, praising their music and power. In 1848 Charlotte's publisher, Smith, Elder & Co., reissued the unsold sheets with a new title page.
Read it for Emily's twenty-one, and notice how different they sound from her sisters' poems. Two copies sold in a year, and a reviewer still picked out Ellis Bell.
— LisanneWuthering Heights
The story of two families on the Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and of Heathcliff, the foundling the Earnshaws take in, whose love for Catherine Earnshaw turns into a revenge that lasts a generation. Emily had finished it by July 1846. Thomas Cautley Newby published it in December 1847, as the first two volumes of a three-volume set whose third volume was Anne's Agnes Grey, soon after the success of Charlotte's Jane Eyre. Critics were puzzled by its structure and shocked by its violence, and many assumed a man had written it. Emily's real name only appeared on the title page after her death, in the edition Charlotte prepared in 1850.
Start here, and give it until Nelly Dean starts telling the story. After that, the book does not let go.
— LisanneThe Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë
Only twenty-one of Emily's poems were published in her lifetime. The rest survived in manuscript, including two notebooks she began copying out in February 1844, one headed “Gondal Poems”. After her death Charlotte published a selection, altering some of the poems as she went. C. W. Hatfield spent some twenty years separating Emily's poems from her sisters' and putting them in chronological order; his 1941 edition gathered around two hundred poems, removed several wrongly attributed to her, and first showed how much Charlotte had changed. It has a preface on the Gondal story by Fannie Ratchford.
Read this after the novel, not before. You will find the storms and the grief of Wuthering Heights in poems written years earlier, spoken by people from an island she invented.
— LisanneWhat Did Emily Brontë Write?
Less than almost any other major English writer, and more than the one famous title suggests.
- One novel — Wuthering Heights (1847). Read the entry →
- About two hundred poems — twenty-one published in 1846, the rest collected after her death, including “No coward soul is mine”, one of her most famous. Read the entry →
- Gondal — the imaginary island she invented with Anne as a teenager. The poems survive; almost all of the prose does not.
- Diary papers — short notes written in her twenties, which also record events in Gondal.
- French essays — written in Brussels in 1842; fewer than a dozen survive. See the full list →
Did Emily Brontë Write a Second Novel?
Possibly, but nothing of it survives. On 15 February 1848 her publisher, Thomas Cautley Newby, wrote to “Ellis Bell” about a next novel, which suggests she had begun one. No manuscript has ever been found. It may have been destroyed after her death, or the letter may have been meant for Anne, who was already writing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for the same publisher.
What is certain is how little time there was. Her brother Branwell died in September 1848; Emily fell ill after his funeral and died on 19 December, a year after Wuthering Heights appeared. The confusion over “Brontë novels” usually comes from her sisters: Charlotte published four novels and Anne two, seven between the three of them, but only one by Emily.
Where to Start with Emily Brontë
If you read only one
→ Wuthering Heights (1847).
If the opening chapters lose you
→ Keep going until the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, takes over the story from the visitor, Lockwood.
If you want the poems
→ A complete modern edition, such as Janet Gezari's The Complete Poems (1992).
If you want to understand the pen name
→ Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), then Charlotte's preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights.
If you want more like her
→ My best fiction books of all time list, or books about love.
In What Order to Read Emily Brontë
In publication order
1. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
2. Wuthering Heights (1847)
3. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (1941), or a modern complete edition
You do not need the poems to read the novel. But reading the novel first makes the poems richer, because you already know the landscape and the kind of love they keep returning to.
Everything Else Emily Brontë Wrote
Beyond the three books, her work survives in later editions of the poems, which each try to put Gondal back together, and in the essays she wrote in French as a student in Brussels. Fewer than a dozen of those essays survive. The edition I would point you to first sits at the top.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
Later editions of her poems
4
4 books · 1938–1995
Emily Jane Brontë: The Complete Poems (1992)
Edited by Janet Gezari for Penguin Classics.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
- 1938Gondal Poemsedited by Helen Brown and Joan Mott from the manuscript in the British Museum
- 1955Gondal's QueenFannie Ratchford's attempt to arrange the Gondal poems into a story
- 1995The Poems of Emily Brontëedited by Derek Roper with Edward Chitham
Essays
1
1 book · 1948
- 1948Five Essays Written in Frenchher Brussels essays, translated by Lorine White Nagel and edited by Fannie Ratchford
How Emily Brontë Writes: A Story Told Secondhand
You never hear Emily Brontë's own voice in Wuthering Heights. The story reaches you through Lockwood, a visitor who misreads almost everything, repeating what he is told by Nelly Dean, the housekeeper, who has her own loyalties inside the house. Early critics were puzzled by that structure, and by a violence and passion the novel neither softens nor condemns. Many of them assumed the author was a man.
Her poems work in a similar way. Most were written for Gondal, so the speaker is rarely Emily herself: it is a prisoner, a mourner, a queen. When she chose twenty-one poems for the 1846 book, she adjusted some of them to hide where they came from. Critics have since traced Gondal's wild scenery and grief-stricken characters into the novel, and a Gondal queen, Augusta Geraldine Almeda, shares a good deal with Catherine Earnshaw.
Very few of her letters survive, and there is no evidence that she was ever in love, or that the passions of Wuthering Heights came from her own life. Much of what we think we know about her came from Charlotte, who after Emily's death reshaped her story, and some of her poems, for the public.
Frequently asked questions about Emily Brontë's books
How many books did Emily Brontë write?
Emily Brontë's work appears in three books: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), which she shared with her sisters Charlotte and Anne; Wuthering Heights (1847), her only novel; and The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (1941), published nearly a century after her death. She wrote one novel.
How many novels did Emily Brontë write?
One. Wuthering Heights, published in December 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell, is her only novel.
What did Emily Brontë write?
One novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), and about two hundred poems, twenty-one of them published in her lifetime. She also wrote short diary papers and essays in French as a student in Brussels, and invented the imaginary world of Gondal with her sister Anne, although almost none of the Gondal prose survives.
Did Emily Brontë write a second novel?
Possibly, but nothing survives. A letter from her publisher dated 15 February 1848, addressed to Ellis Bell, suggests she had begun a second novel, but no manuscript has ever been found. It may have been destroyed, or the letter may have been meant for Anne. Emily died in December 1848.
Did Emily Brontë only write one book?
She wrote only one novel, Wuthering Heights. Her poems appeared in a second book, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), shared with her sisters, and in The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (1941), published after her death.
What are Emily Brontë's books in order?
In order of publication: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Wuthering Heights (1847) and The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (1941).
What was Emily Brontë's first book?
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, published in 1846 by Aylott and Jones and paid for by the three sisters. Emily contributed twenty-one poems as Ellis Bell.
What pen name did Emily Brontë use?
Ellis Bell. Her sisters were Currer Bell (Charlotte) and Acton Bell (Anne). Charlotte later explained that they chose names that were not positively masculine, because they did not want to declare themselves women and expected prejudice against female authors.
How many poems did Emily Brontë write?
Around two hundred of her poems survive. Only twenty-one were published during her lifetime, in the 1846 collection she shared with her sisters.
How many Wuthering Heights books are there?
Just one; there is no sequel. The first edition of 1847 came in two volumes, sold as a three-volume set with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey as the third.
When did Emily Brontë write Wuthering Heights?
She had finished Wuthering Heights by July 1846. It was published in December 1847, when she was twenty-nine.
What did Charlotte and Anne Brontë write?
Charlotte Brontë wrote four novels: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and The Professor, which was published after her death. Anne Brontë wrote two: Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Only one of the seven Brontë novels, Wuthering Heights, is by Emily.
How did Emily Brontë die?
She caught a severe cold at her brother Branwell's funeral in the autumn of 1848. It developed into an inflammation of the lungs, which may have worsened tuberculosis, and she died at home in Haworth on 19 December 1848, aged thirty.
Who was Emily Brontë?
Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was an English novelist and poet, the sister of Charlotte and Anne Brontë. She is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, published in 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Footnotes
- Emily Brontë — Wikipedia
- Wuthering Heights — Wikipedia
- Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell — Wikipedia
- Emily Brontë — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Emily Brontë — Poetry Foundation
- Rare as a Brontë — State Library of New South Wales
- Charles William Hatfield — Orlando, Cambridge University Press
- The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë — Columbia University Press edition
- Brontë editions and bibliography — thebrontes.net
- All about the author of Wuthering Heights — wuthering-heights.co.uk
Bibliography last verified 10 September 2026.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
— Catherine Earnshaw, in Wuthering Heights (1847)
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