THE WRITER of a Brontë-themed conspiracy novel has asked forensic experts to prove his theory about who wrote Wuthering Heights.

Chris Firth wants a team of scholars to use their specialist computer software to analyse Emily Brontë’s writing.

Mr Firth believes that Emily’s notorious brother Branwell Brontë actually wrote the celebrated tale of romance and tragedy.

Mr Firth first made the claim 10 years ago in his novel Branwell Brontë’s Barbers Tale.

The story, a fictionalised account of part of Branwell’s life, has now been re-released in paperback as Branwell Brontë’s Tale.

To mark the book’s 10th anniversary Mr Firth has enlisted the same linguistic and computer experts who revealed that The Cuckoo’s Calling, the debut crime novel by ‘Robert Galbraith’, was really written by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling.

Mr Firth said the academics were awaiting samples of Branwell’s surviving prose writing and chapters of Wuthering Heights, so they could run the same ‘forensic stylometry’ test.

Mr Firth said the Java Graphical Authorship Attribution program would test word frequency, sentence structuring and vocabulary ordering.

He said: “The computer tests could prove one and for all whether Branwell was in fact the author of the classic tale, as his friends at the time of publication of the novel claimed.

“Emily never claimed to have written Wuthering Heights and both she and Branwell died before it became a widespread seller of the time.”

Mr Firth suspects that for reasons unknown, Emily’s straight-laced sister Charlotte demonised Branwell and obscured his input to the creative success of the Bronte family.

He said this potential conspiracy theory provided a vehicle for his own “gripping, fascinating and tragically moving” tale.

He added: “My novel minutely examines Branwell’s hectic creative and social life while working as a portrait painter in the bohemian districts of Bradford in the 1830s.

“The latest large-font edition of the historical thriller rolls in at a whopping 366 pages, but with excitement, adventure and vivid historical detail on every page.”

The book is said to be thoroughly-researched and stylishly-written by a native of Bradford, painting a vivid picture of the city as a busy boom-town in the mid 1800s.

Mr Firth added: “that historical thriller reveals the generous, fun-loving genius that the black sheep of the Bronte family was in his early years, as well as the tragic figure he became before his death at the early age of 31.”

Branwell Bronte’s Tale is available as a paperback from Electraglade Press – by e-mailing info@electragladepress.com – or from Amazon as a paperback and Kindle download.