At first glance, the sleepy village of Haworth (population 2,753) in Northern England’s West Yorkshire appears to be nothing more than an ordinary British town. In fact, one may be inclined to pass it by, never noticing the beauty of the town center’s cobblestone streets lined with shops, pubs and restaurants set amid the haunting moors. Haworth was once home to the Brontës — one of the great literary families in the world. It’s a town etched with the history, splendor and charm of a time when three writer sisters penned their works, hailed today as the epitome of Victorian literature.

The Brontë sisters spent most of their lives in the Brontë Parsonage House where their father was a minister. Charlotte, probably the most well-known Brontë, was born in 1816, followed by Emily in 1818, and Ann in 1820. Their mother died shortly after Ann’s birth, and the sisters formed a tight bond, with Charlotte taking on a motherly role. The three girls, along with their brother Branwell, were home-schooled after two elder sisters had fallen ill and died while attending boarding school. The Brontës had few childhood friends, and perhaps this introverted world allowed all four to develop their artistic talents. They created imaginary worlds called Gondal and Andria and wrote stories and poems about them.

Emily Brontë was most happy on the moors that surrounded her home.

As young women in Victorian society, the Brontës had few career options. They took jobs as governesses, which none of them really enjoyed, and longed to be writers. The sisters collaborated on a book of poetry and published it under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. They kept these pseudonyms even after their greatest works, their novels, were published, in order to conceal their identities and to be taken seriously not as women writers, but as writers.

Her biographer and friend, Elizabeth Gaskell, describes Charlotte as shy, small and plain, but intelligent and steadfast in her beliefs. Charlotte went beyond Victorian ideals when she wrote Jane Eyre (1847) and proved she could create a heroine who, much like herself, needn't be beautiful to be interesting. Charlotte and the character of Jane were both independent in nature, rejecting Victorian conventions and financial security by refusing marriage proposals in order to find true love.

Emily, who wrote the classic Wuthering Heights (1847), was tall, strong and reserved rather than shy. She rarely traveled from home and was only happy and well on the moors that surrounded her house. Like her character Heathcliff, Emily refused to adhere to society’s conventions and rules, renouncing religion and interacting only with family.

Ann is described as asthmatic and frail; shy, sweet, and highly religious, her most famous work The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) questions the morality and religious faith of its reader and is considered to be one of the first feminist novels.