An exhibition shedding new light on the Bronte sisters opens next month at the Parsonage Museum.

The Business of a Woman's Life, in the Bonnell Room, marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charlotte Bronte's novel Shirley.

It opens on February 6 and runs until January 9 next year.

The exhibition takes one of the main themes from the novel as its starting point, exploring the options open to women at the time the book was written.

Lively displays will put both the novel and the sisters' own lives into historical and literary context, spotlighting important items from the Bronte Society's own collections plus loaned exhibits.

Among the items on loan will be the only surviving letter written by Maria Branwell to Patrick - Charlotte's parents - before their marriage in December 1812.

Other exhibits will include an essay - The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns - written by Maria Branwell, and an 1853 copy of Shirley signed by Arthur Bell Nicholls who at that time was curate at the Parsonage and later became Charlotte's husband.

Displays from the Bronte Society's own collections will include the famous letter to Charlotte from Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate. He wrote that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life as it ought not to be", hence the title of the exhibition.

Also on view will be a number of other letters written by Charlotte throughout her life.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.