Napoleonic Periodicals and the Childhood Imagination: The Influence of War Commentary on Charlotte and Branwell Brontë’s Glass Town and Angria

The impact of the Napoleonic Wars was keenly felt by Charlotte and Branwell Brontë in their post-war juvenilia (1829‒39). Their imaginary worlds of Glass Town and Angria were primarily based on the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The siblings used post-Waterloo accounts in periodicals to reshape and reanimate the relationship between these two military heroes. Examining the characteristics imprinted on Wellington and Bonaparte by the contemporary press, this article argues that the Brontës’ writings provide important commentary on the worship of soldier figures in the periodical press and its enduring influence on early nineteenth-century popular culture.