Brontë family "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey", had launched a rumour that the three novels were the work of one author, understood to be Ellis Bell (Emily). George Smith was extremely surprised to find two gawky, ill-dressed country girls paralysed with fear, who, to identify themselves, held out the letters addressed to "Messrs. Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell". Taken by such surprise, he introduced them to his mother with all the dignity their talent merited, and invited them to the opera for a performance of Rossini's "Barber of Seville". Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" was published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonym Ellis
Vereen Bell Vereen Bell Vereen M. Bell (5 October 1911 – 26 October 1944) was an American novelist and naval officer, who was killed in action during World War II. Born in Cairo, Georgia, he graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1932. After writing several short stories and editing magazines, Bell wrote the novel "Swamp Water", set in the Okefenokee Swamp. It was originally published in 1940 as a serial in the "Saturday Evening Post". The novel was successfully adapted as a film (B&W) of the same title in 1941 and again as a color film, "Lure of The Wilderness",