You probably know of Emily Brontë though her only novel, Wuthering Heights. If you’re a fan of Victorian literature, you might even be able to list off each author in the Brontë sister literary trio: Emily, Charlotte, and Anne.

Although her sister Charlotte’s biographies are expansive enough to create a personal standalone history, Emily has a somewhat mysterious historical presence with a lack of saved letter correspondence. Ellen Nussey, a family friend of the Brontës, once wrote, “[s]o very little is known about Emily Brontë, that every little detail awakens an interest.”

To celebrate this Brontë sister’s birthday, we’ve uncovered little details that “awaken an interest” in Emily’s life and writing. Below is a list of ten things you (probably) didn’t know about Emily Brontë.

#1: Emily never fell in love.

Or, at least, records suggest she never fell in love. Emily Brontë never married and there is no recorded evidence of personal romantic interests. This seems ironic given that her only published novel was voted the United Kingdom’s favorite love story.

Perhaps though, this detail makes sense since Emily repeatedly undermines the romantic narrative between Heathcliff and Catherine throughout the novel, asking us to question the characters’ morality and intentions.

#2: Her bravery inspired a scene in Charlotte’s writing.

Rumor has it that Emily sustained a serious injury from a rabies-ridden dog bite. Instead of rushing for help, she used a red-hot Italian iron to cauterize the wound. Does this scene sound familiar? Charlotte says she reimagined this real incident in her novel Shirley, where the heroine is also bitten by a dog.

#3: Emily died before finishing her second novel.

A letter from Emily’s publisher suggests that Emily was working on a second novel manuscript. Mysteriously though, no such manuscript has ever been found. This leaves curious minds to wonder if Emily’s family destroyed this second novel, if the novel ever really existed in a physical form, or if the writing is still waiting to be discovered.

#4: She was a homebody.

Emily spent much of her life at home in Haworth, England. In fact, most of her education took place inside her family’s house. One exception to this rule was her time at Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire at age six. However, she was only enrolled for one year because of the devastating death of her sisters Elizabeth and Maria, who most likely contracted tuberculosis at the school.

At age 17, Emily gave traditional schooling another shot and enrolled in Roe Head Girls’ School, where her sister Charlotte was a teacher. Emily returned home after three months due to homesickness. Still later, Emily made another effort to embrace traveling so she could study in Brussels with Charlotte. The two sisters pursued this education in hopes of managing a school for girls at Haworth that would keep the family united at home. However, Emily did not feel at home in Brussels, refusing to adopt Belgian fashion and becoming a bit of an outcast at the school.

#5: Wuthering Heights wasn’t always beloved.

When Wuthering Heights was first published, it received a ton of negative criticism and cautionary book reviews. Lady Magazine wrote, “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery.” Examiner wrote, “as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequences, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer.”

Nowadays, though, the novel is widely beloved. You’ve probably run into at least one person who adores Wuthering Heights. The novel is an English literature classic regularly included in must-read book lists. It has even inspired several adaptations in film, radio, television, musical theater, ballet, opera, and music.

#6: Emily was an artist of multiple mediums.

She is best known for writing fiction and poetry, but Emily’s work didn’t stop there. Local artist John Bradley tutored her in the visual arts, but she experimented with different mediums largely on her own time. There are 29 surviving illustrations created by Emily, including pen-and-ink sketches, watercolors, pencil drawings, engravings, and geometric exercises.

In addition to the visual arts, Emily also studied piano. Her recovered music books suggest she was able to play masterpieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Haydn. It’s possible that this love for music inspired the Gimmerton band in her novel.

#7: She was incredibly shy and reserved.

For such a famous wordsmith, it seems Emily Brontë was actually quite reticent. Charlotte prefaced the second edition of Wuthering Heights with the comment that her “sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion.”

In her Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era, Eva Hope writes, “She was painfully shy, but physically she was brave to a surprising degree.” In fact, she was so reserved, her father didn’t know she was writing Wuthering Heights under his own roof until its publication.

#8: Her pseudonym was Ellis Bell.

Like several female authors, Emily wrote under a male pseudonym: Ellis Bell. She published her Wuthering Heights under this pseudonym and her real name didn’t appear on the novel until 1850, two years after her death.

Each of the literary sisters followed this practice, as seen in their combined poetry collection, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Regarding their choice to publish under male names, Charlotte wrote, “we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.”

#9: Emily always had a creative spirit.

Even as a child, Emily had a literary mind. When she was young, her brother Branwell’s set of toy soldiers inspired the literary trio of Brontë sisters to create imaginary stories about a world they named Angria. Later, at age 13, Emily teamed up with her sister Anne to begin a new world-making adventure with stories located in a fictional island called Gondal.

None of the Gondal prose fiction survived, but the British Museum does house some of the sisters’ poetry about Gondal. From the little evidence that survives from Emily and Anne’s juvenilia, scholars believe the Gondal stories to resemble a sort of speculative fiction.

#10: She didn’t appreciate disciplined routine.

Several authors credit part of their literary success to building a regular writing routine, such as Haruki Murakami, who said, “The repetition itself becomes the important thing.” For Emily though, freedom in her schedule was essential, and she did not find solace in a regular routine. In one of her letters, Charlotte wrote, “Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from her own home […] to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindest auspices), was what she failed in enduring… I felt in my heart she would die if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall.”