How shame of contagion keeps alive romantic notions of how the Brontës died

Bizarrely, the idea that Branwell Brontë had sex with his sister Emily appears to have been more palatable than the idea that he might have given her tuberculosis – or that the infection might have passed to Anne from either sibling. Those documenting the lives of the Brontës since the late 19th century have been curiously reluctant to acknowledge this fact.

Branwell, Emily, and Anne all died from various forms of tuberculosis between September 1848 and May 1849. All three had lived together at Haworth Parsonage in Yorkshire with