Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte was born on April 21st 1816 at Thornton, Bradford in Yorkshire, third child of the six Bronte children. In 1821 her mother dies of cancer. In 1824 she attended the newly opened Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge. While there with her sisters Maria, Elizabeth and Emily they suffer the harsh regime, cold and poor food.
In 1829 Charlotte begins to write stories: The Search After Happiness, History of the Year, are some of the titles. In January 1831 she enrolled at Roe. In June 1832 she completed her education at Roe Head and in July 1835 returned as a teacher.

In February 1842 Charlotte and Emily left Haworth for the Pensionnat Heger at Brussels. While there they learnt French, German and Music.

 In May 1846 under the Pseudonym of Currer Ellis and

Acton Bell, a book of Poems was published, Charlotte contributed 19 poems. She tries to have her novel the Professor published without success. In August she began to write the novel Jane Eyre. October 1847 Jane Eyre is published and quickly becomes a bestseller. October 1849 Shirley is published, January 1853 Villette is published. In June 1854, Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, and became pregnant soon thereafter. Charlotte died, along with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, at the young age of 38.

 "The greatest work of horror ever. OK, technically

there are no monsters or aliens or what-have-you, but there's no way this isn't horror. A book about madness, loneliness, manipulation, class and sex that's more frightening than any tentacled thing Lovecraft could come up with." China Miville

 Jane Eyre was Charlotte Bronts second novel, but the

first to be published. Her story appeared only two months after Smith, Elder and Co., received the final manuscript in August 1847. The novel was greeted with almost instant acclaim. Critics seized upon its imaginative power and the reality and freshness of its style. It remains one the most popular and widely read of English novels. The manuscript shown here is Charlottes autograph fair copy. It is remarkably neat, with very few corrections - a beautiful example of what Bronts biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, described as her clear, legible, delicate traced writing.

 Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character.

The novel goes through five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead, where she is emotionally abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she acquires friends and role models but also suffers privations; her time as the governess of Thornfield Manor, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time with the Rivers family at Marsh's End (or Moor House) and Morton, where her cold clergymancousin St John Rivers proposes to her; and her reunion with and marriage to her beloved Rochester.