EMILY Bronte’s “lost” novel has been published after she communicated from the grave with a modern-day writer.

This is the claim of Leeds woman Morwenna Holman, who says she collaborated with the ghost of the famous author of Wuthering Heights.

‘Spirit writer’ Morwenna last year published Westerdale after many hours speaking with “real perfectionist” Emily and has gone on to write a sequel entitled Heaton.

Morwenna’s communication with Emily Brontë began when she visited the Parsonage Museum at the age of 10.

She said: “Before then I had been seeing a young girl in period dress in my bedroom, but she never said a word to me.

“She did not frighten me I had been seeing spirits since the age of about eight.”

Morwenna said she recognised Emily from her portrait in the museum, and almost immediately she heard a voice telling her she had to write a special novel when she was older.

She said: “At the age of 18 my psychic powers reached their full strength and Emily told me I had to write her second novel, which was destroyed by Charlotte when she lay dying.”

Westerdale is described as a tragic drama set in the wild landscape of the northern moors, detailing fear, aggression and rivalry between two families.

Morwenna said Westerdale took a year to complete.

She said: “Emily was a real perfectionist and hard to work with, but she brought such an essence of love that it made it enjoyable.”

In 2013, long after it was written by Morwenna, Westerdale was accepted by Olympia Publishers and it is now available on the website Amazon.

Morwenna said that in the intervening years she had worked with many other spirits, writing 10 of their life stories, but she recently collaborated again with Emily to write the famous woman’s third novel, Heaton.

Morwenna said: “For the first time I saw her smile as I unpacked the first precious editions of Heaton and in that smile was the warmth of the most wonderful spirit I have ever encountered.”

Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, said there was no firm evidence that Emily had written a second novel in her lifetime.

But she said that in 1871, an American author wrote a series of works allegedly dictated through a clairvoyant by famous writers including Charlotte Brontë.

Ann added: “This means Emily wasn’t the first. There’s a precedent for these sisters to write from the grave.”