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Brontė, Charlotte, 1816-1855.
Pseudonym: Currer Bell.
English novelist and poet, born in Thornton, Yorkshire. Sister of Emily and
Anne Brontė, also authors. Their first (joint) literary effort, Poems by Currer,
Ellis and Acton Bell (1846) failed to find an audience, but all went on to
write classic English novels. Their true identities were only revealed afterwards.
All three suffered early deaths. Charlotte's life is the subject of Elizabeth
Gaskell's classic biography The Life of Charlotte Brontė (1857).
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Jane Eyre. 1847.
A Bildungsroman of the education and life of the titular character,
an unwanted relative of a wealthy family exiled to an ill-managed charity
boarding school. Marturing to become a teacher herself, Jane seeks work as a
governess. She is engaged to instruct the ward of the misanthropic Edward
Rochester, a magnetic but bitter with a dark secret. They fall in love, but their
wedding is disrupted by the revelation that Rochester is already married, to
Bertha, a violent madwoman confined in his attic. Jane flees, eventually
finding sanctuary with kinder relatives. Meanwhile Bertha kills herself burning
down Rochester Hall, and Edward is blinded trying to save her. Jane, sensing his
his need, returns to nurse him back to health, and the two wed after all.
Adaptations to stage, film, stage, radio and television are too numerous to list;
musicals, ballets and operas have also been based on the book. Its story has been
reworked, retold and sequeled by numerous later authors, most notably by
Jean Rhys,
whose
Wide
Sargasso Sea (1966) reimagines the tragic life of the first Mrs.
Rochester.
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Posted
Jun. 6, 2013,
and last updated
Jun. 6, 2013.
Please report any errors to the compiler.
Published by Fleabonnet Press.
The source list data is public domain.
Additional material © 1999-2013 by Brian Kunde.
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