# “Working Girls: The Brontës” by Elizabeth Hardwick

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/working-girls-the-bront-s-by-elizabeth-hardwick
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/working-girls-the-bront-s-by-elizabeth-hardwick.md
Podcast: [Private Life: A New York Review Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958)
Published: 2026-02-18T19:15:40+00:00
Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/2319bae6
Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/2319bae6/fcc63616.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/episodes/working-girls-the-bront-s-by-elizabeth-hardwick
Duration seconds: 3697

## Resource

In the May 4, 1972, issue of The New York Review of Books , Elizabeth Hardwick wrote about the lives and work of the Brontë sisters on the occasion of Winifred Gérin’s then-new biography of Emily (preceded by Gérin’s biographies of Anne, Branwell, and Charlotte, and followed in 1973 by her group biography The Brontës ). In this episode of Private Life , Hardwick’s essay is read by Kathleen Chalfant, an actress who has appeared in television, in film, and in stage productions on and off Broadway. She is currently performing in New York in the Playwrights Horizons production of Jacob Perkins’s The Dinosaurs , and she recently starred in Sarah Friedland’s film Familiar Touch (2024). This reading serves as an accompaniment to the Private Life episode featuring Darryl Pinckney discussing his close friendship with Hardwick. You can also read “ Working Girls: The Brontës ” with a subscription to The New York Review of Books , which, in addition to twenty print issues a year, provides online access to our full archive going back to 1963.

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## Transcript

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