Jayne Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

Overview

Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl and her passage into adulthood, was an immediate commercial success at the time of its original publication in 1847. Its representation of the underside of domestic life and the hypocrisy behind religious enthusiasm drew both praise and bitter criticism, while Charlotte Brontë's striking expose of poor living conditions for children in charity schools as well as her poignant portrayal of the limitations faced by women who worked as governesses sparked great controversy and social debate. Jane Eyre, Brontë's best-known novel, remains an extraordinary coming-of-age narrative, and one of the great classics of literature.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012180704
Publisher:	Sunrise Publishing
Publication date:	03/06/2011
Series:	Sunrise Master Works , #6
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	497,183
File size:	685 KB

About the Author

Charlotte Brontë was born 21 April 1816, third of the six children of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. The major event of her young life was the death of her mother in 1821, which created a lot of chaos. In 1824, Charlotte and her two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to the newly-opened Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters' School1.

Conditions there were bad even by the standards of the time, and it was not long before both Maria and Elizabeth became ill enough to be sent home, where they both died of consumption in the spring of1825. Patrick brought Charlotte and her younger sister Emily, who had recently joined them at the school, back home as soon as the other girls became ill, but Charlotte in particular never forgot what the school had been like2.

The surviving kids all became each others' best friends. They created the kingdom of Gondal3 and wrote all kinds of epic stories and poems set in that realm. Charlotte and Branwell were in charge of Angria proper, while Emily and Anne (the youngest) ran the neighboring kingdom of Gondal.

Charlotte's next adventure was going to school in Brussels with Emily in 1842. Charlotte's time there was brief, less than two years, but it led to her eventual writing of Villette4 beginning in 1852.

Back home, Charlotte lapsed into chronic unemployment and severe hypochondria, actually thinking she was going blind, just like her father was. In 1846 the three sisters published a book of Poems5, and though sales were very slow, the reviews were good and spurred on further literary endeavours. Charlotte's novel of this time, The Professor, was actually rather bad, suffering from a less-than-believeable main character. In August of 1846 Charlotte began work on Jane Eyre. Though it was published in 1847, Charlotte didn't tell her father about it until the next year, when the novel's success was plain.

This success was followed up by tragedy, however. In September 1848, Branwell died, probably due to his extrememly heavy drinking; this was closely followed by Emily's death from consumption in December 1848, and Anne's death of the same disease in May 1849. Bereft, Charlotte and her father clung to each other for support. Charlotte's grief is plain in the last third of her novel Shirley, which she'd been working on when all the death started.

Eventually, Charlotte started spending some time in London, meeting other writers of the day. Thacke