Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre — the first-person voice of the modern heroine

The eldest of the three writing Brontë sisters and author of one of the most beloved novels in English. Jane Eyre gave fiction a new kind of heroine — plain, poor, fiercely independent, and morally uncompromising — narrating her own story in a voice of unprecedented intimacy and passion. Published under the pen name Currer Bell, it fused Gothic romance with a sharp critique of how women were constrained, and reshaped the English novel from within.

Key works

• Jane Eyre1847— 'Reader, I married him' — the heroine as her own narrator
  Novel
• Villette1853— A darker, more psychological masterpiece of isolation
  Novel
• Shirley1849— Industrial unrest and two contrasting heroines
  Novel

Connections

External