As was common at the time, all three sisters chose to publish their books under male pseudonyms so that the world knew them as Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell. Emily Brontë was Ellis, and first published Wuthering Heights using this name in 1847. She died in the next year, aged only 30. Her sister Charlotte wrote a preface to a new, posthumous edition of the novel, which was published in 1850, and in it Charlotte revealed the use of a male pseudonym.