A trio of American actresses have been cast as the most famous sisters in English literature.

The three starlets are set to play Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte in the film Bronte, which will trace their lives in Haworth in the early 1800s.

Taking on the role of Charlotte, the eldest sister who wrote Jane Eyre, will be Michelle Williams, 26,who starred in Brokeback Mountain and long-running TV show Dawson's Creek.

Playing Emily, author of Wuthering Heights, will be 26 year-old Bryce Dallas Howard, who is currently starring in Spider-Man 3, and cast as Anne, who wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is the 19-year-old Evan Rachel Wood, who shot to fame in the controversial teen-drama Thirteen.

Bronte, due for release in 2009, has been written and is being directed by British filmmaker Charles Sturridge, who recently directed the Lassie remake.

He said: "My family come from Yorkshire and I grew up with five sisters, so this is a story I have always wanted to tell."

Richard Wilcocks, chairman of the Bronte Society, said he hoped the movie would remain true to the spirit of the Brontes and he expected Michelle Williams to be excellent as Charlotte.

He hoped the film makers would take into account how important location and atmosphere were to the inspiration of the Brontes. He said: "I would prefer if it they filmed on the Yorkshire Moors, and I'm sure they would be welcomed to film at the Parsonage where the women did their work."

It was at the Parsonage in Haworth from 1820 that the three sisters and their brother as children created their own fantasy world.

Later, the sisters created pseudonyms to get published and it was only later that their true identity was revealed.

The Parsonage, which is now a world famous museum to their lives and work, saw the deaths of Branwell, aged 31, in September 1848, followed three months later by Emily, aged 30.

Anne died in May 1849, aged 29, in Scarborough, where she had gone to convalesce, while Charlotte died, aged 38, in March 1855, in the early stages of pregnancy.