The state of the Brontes, circa 1877

In 1877, the editor, journalist, and biographer Thomas Wemyss Reid published a well-received short biography of Charlotte Bronte, entitled Charlotte Bronte: A Monograph.  Wemyss Reid intended to gently correct what he believed to be the false assumptions structuring Elizabeth Gaskell's biography, although he also had access to new information not available to the earlier writer.  In the final chapters, he assesses the contemporary interest, or lack thereof, in the Brontes' fiction.  Some excerpts:

The Bronte novels continued to sell largely for some time after Charlotte's death. The publication of Mrs. Gaskell's " Life" added not a little to the sale, and both at home and abroad the fame of the three sisters was greatly increased. But in recent years the disposition has been almost to ignore these books; and though fresh editions have recently been issued they have had no circulation worthy of being compared with that which they maintained between 1850 and 1860.  (201)

"Wuthering Heights," the solitary prose work of Emily Bronte, is now practically unread. Even those who admire the genius of the family, those who have the highest opinion of the qualities displayed in "Jane Eyre" or "Villette," turn away with something like a shudder from "that dreadful book," as one who knew the Brontes intimately always calls it. (201)

It is with a feeling of curious disappointment that one rises from the perusal of the writings of Anne Bronte. She wrote two novels, " Agnes Grey " and " The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," neither of which will really repay perusal.  (216)

The fashion which exalted her [CB] to such a pinnacle of fame, like many another fashion, has lost its vogue; and the present generation, wrapped in admiration of another school of fiction, has consigned the works of "Currer Bell" to a premature sepulchre. But her friends need not despair; for from that dreary tomb of neglect an hour of resurrection must come, and the woman who has given us three of the most masterful books of the century, will again assert her true position in the literature of her country. (228-29)

To a modern reader, excerpt #2 might be the most startling: nobody reads Wuthering Heights anymore?! (For that matter, anyone conditioned to read the novel as some sort of Grand Romance will receive a perhaps salutary shock from Wemyss Reid's brutal assessment of Heathcliff's romantic possibilities: "the most unmitigated villain in fiction" [202]).  And while most Victorianists would probably not nominate Agnes Grey for the Most Exciting Under-Read Victorian Novel Prize, recent years have seen much more interest in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The final prediction, of course, is quite prescient.