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Emily Jane Bronte was born in Thorton in Yorkshire, the fifth of six children born to Patrick and Maria Bronte. There were five girls and one boy.

Emily's father, Patrick, was appointed curate of Haworth, an isolated village in the Yorkshire moors. Both of Emily's parents had literary leanings but in 1821 shortly after Emily's third birthday her mother Maria died of cancer. This left Aunt Elizabeth, Maria's sister, to move to Haworth and become the housekeeper and was responsible for training the four girls.

Emily's closest friends were her two sisters, Charlotte and Ann, and her brother Branwell. In 1842 the four eldest girls were sent to Cowan Bridge school which was a place for daughters of impoverished Clergymen. The harsh conditions there brought on an epidemic that took the lives of Emily's two sisters Maria and Elizabeth.

Emily Bronte began writing poetry at an early age and along with her two sisters Anne and Charlotte had them published in a slim volume in 1846 titled Poems by Currer Ellis and Acton Bell.

Emily Bronte is most famously known for her novel Wuthering Heights published in 1847 under the peusdonym Ellis Bell. Emily's brother Branwell, whom she was very fond of and close to, died in 1848 at the age of thirty due to his addiction to alcohol and drugs. Almost exactly a year after her novel Wuthering Heights was published, Emily Bronte herself took ill with aninflammation in the lungs and died.