Patrick Branwell Brontë (, commonly ; 26 June 1817 – 24 September 1848) was an English painter and writer. He was the only son of the Brontë family, and brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Brontë was rigorously tutored at home by his father, and earned praise for his poetry and translations from the classics. However, he drifted between jobs, supporting himself by portrait-painting, and gave way to drug and alcohol addiction, apparently worsened by a failed relationship with a married woman. Brontë died at the age of 31. Youth Branwell Brontë was the fourth of six children and the only son of Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) and his wife, Maria Branwell Brontë (1783–1821). He was born in Thornton, near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, and moved with his family to Haworth when his father was appointed to the perpetual curacy in 1821. While four of his five sisters were sent to Cowan Bridge boarding school, Branwell was educated at home by his father, who gave him a classical education. Elizabeth Gaskell, biographer of his sister, Charlotte Brontë, says of Branwell's schooling "Mr. Brontë's friends advised him to send his son to school; but, remembering both the strength of will of his own youth and his mode of employing it, he believed that Branwell was better at home, and that he himself could teach him well, as he had told others before." His two eldest sisters died just before his eighth birthday in 1825, and their loss affected him deeply. Even as a young boy Brontë read extensively, and was especially fond of the "Noctes Ambrosianae", literary dialogues published in Blackwood's Magazine. He took leadership role with Charlotte in a series of fantasy role-playing games which the siblings wrote and performed about the "Young Men", characters based on a set of wooden soldiers. The plays evolved into an intricate saga based in West Africa about the fictitious Glass Town confederacy. From 1834, he both collaborated and competed with his sister Charlotte to describe another imaginary world, Angria. Branwell's particular interest in these paracosms were their politics and wars, including the destructive rivalry between their heroes, Charlotte's Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Zamorna, and his Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland. These writings impress by their virtuosity and scope, but are also repetitive when compared to Charlotte's contributions. Christine Alexander, a Brontë juvenilia historian the University of New South Wales, wrote "Both