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Charlotte Bronte page
Charlotte Bronte
was born at Thornton, Yorkshire, in 1816, the third daughter of the Reverend
Bronte and his wife Maria Branwell 
Bronte.
Her brother Patrick Branwell followed her in 1817, and by Emily in 1818 and
Anne in 1820. Their mother passed
away in 1821. In 1825, the 2
eldest daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, died of tuberculosis that they had
caught while at the Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge. Charlotte and
Emily, who were also attending the school, were brought home. Charlotte based Lowood School in “Jane Eyre”
upon this establishment.
The following year, their father brought home a box of
wooden soldiers for Branwell to play with, but they were adopted by all the
children, and led to them creating 2 fully realised fantasy worlds. Charlotte and Branwell were in charge
of Angria, while Emily and Anne concerned themselves with Gondal. From 1831 onwards, Charlotte attended
Roe Head School, first as a pupil, then as a governess. Charlotte was employed as a governess
in a variety of positions that never lasted very long. In 1842, Charlotte and Emily went to
Brussels to finish their education.
Charlotte taught English, and Emily taught music to pay for their own
classes and lodgings at the pensionnat ran by M. and Mme. Constantin Heger. Charlotte later used this experience in
her novels “The Professor” and “Villette”.
The surviving Bronte sisters had planned to open their own
school, but no one responded to their adverts. Charlotte happened upon Emily’s poems, and decided to release
a volume featuring poems from all 3 sisters, which were published in 1846 under
the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which apparently only sold 2
copies. Charlotte’s novel “The
Professor” was rejected for publication. However, in 1847, Charlotte’s
“Jane Eyre”, Emily’s “Wuthering
Heights”, and Anne’s “Agnes Grey”
were all published using the Bell pseudonyms. The following year, Charlotte and Emily made a trip to their
London publishers to reveal their identities. However, 1848 was a disastrous year for the Bronte family:
Branwell, who had become a debauched alcoholic, passed away, Emily died of
tuberculosis also, and Anne died of the same disease 6 months later in
1849. Now, only Charlotte and her
father remained of the Bronte family.
However, Charlotte’s fame spread, and from time to time, she
visited London to meet with fellow writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and
William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom she had previously dedicated “Jane Eyre”.
She still used the pseudonym of Currer Bell for the publication of “Shirley”
in 1849, a novel that was affected by her grief. In 1852, the curate of Haworth, the Reverend Arthur Bell
Nicholls, proposed to Charlotte, but her father objected to the union.
Charlotte Bronte’s next novel, “Villette”,
was published in 1853. In 1854,
Charlotte and the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls became engaged, after her
father’s opposition to the match had lessened, and they married in the same
year. The union did not last
longer however, as Charlotte caught pneumonia while pregnant, and passed
away. Charlotte’s first novel,
“The Professor”, was finally published posthumously in 1857.
Jane
Eyre – Project Gutenberg ebook
edition of the novel
The Professor – Project
Gutenberg ebook edition of the novel
Villette – Project Gutenberg
ebook edition of the novel
Shirley
– the Adelaide ebook edition
The Life of
Charlotte Bronte – ebook edition of Mrs. Gaskell’s biography
Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park versus Charlotte
Bronte’s Jane Eyre – Kevin Patrick Mahoney’s
essay
The
representation of the doubleness of Selfhood in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea – Liz Lewis’s essay
The
use of symbolism in the presentation of characters and plots in Jane Eyre and
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jenia Geraghty’s essay
Jane
Eyre: Fire and Water – an essay by Daryl Sng
The
other case: Gender and Narration in Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor –
Annette R. Frederico’s essay
“The
gallery of memory”: The Pictoral in Jane Eyre – Lawrence J. Starzyk’s essay
Edward
Rochester and the margins of masculinity in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea
– Robert Kendrick’s essay
Brown, Kate E. "Beloved Objects: Mourning,
Materiality, and Charlotte Bronte's "Never-Ending Story""
ELH - Volume 65, Number 2, Summer 1998, pp. 395-421
The Johns Hopkins University Press
LeFavour,
Cree "" Jane Eyre Fever": Deciphering the Astonishing Popular
Success of Charlotte Bronte in Antebellum America"
Book History - Volume 7, 2004, pp. 113-141
Penn State University Press
Lonoff
de Cuevas, Sue "The Education of Charlotte Bronte: A Pedagogical Case
Study"
Pedagogy - Volume 1, Issue 3, Fall 2001, pp. 457-477
Duke University Press
Lane,
Christopher 1966- "Charlotte Bronte on the Pleasure of Hating"
ELH - Volume 69, Number 1, Spring 2002, pp. 199-222
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Wein,
Toni "Gothic Desire in Charlotte Bronte's Villette"
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume 39, Number 4, Autumn 1999,
pp. 733-746
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Clarke,
Micael M. "Bronte's Jane Eyre and the Grimms' Cinderella"
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume 40, Number 4, Autumn 2000,
pp. 695-710
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Gargano,
Elizabeth "The Education of Bronte's New Nouvelle Heloise in Shirley"
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume 44, Number 4, Autumn 2004,
pp. 779-803
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Ruth,
Jennifer "Between Labor and Capital: Charlotte Bronte's Professional
Professor"
Victorian Studies - Volume 45, Number 2, Winter 2003, pp. 279-303
Indiana University Press
Bewell,
Alan 1951- "Jane Eyre and Victorian Medical Geography"
ELH - Volume 63, Number 3, Fall 1996, pp. 773-808
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Maurer,
Sara L. "A Stranger Within the Gates: Charlotte Bronte and Victorian
Irishness, and: The Brontes and Religion (review)"
Victorian Studies - Volume 44, Number 3, Spring 2002, pp. 529-532
Indiana University Press
Dolin,
Tim "Fictional Territory and a Woman's Place: Regional and Sexual
Difference in Shirley"
ELH - Volume 62, Number 1, Spring 1995, pp. 197-215
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Hughes,
John "The Affective World of Charlotte Bronte's Villette"
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume 40, Number 4, Autumn 2000,
pp. 711-726
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Vanden
Bossche, Chris "What Did Jane Eyre Do? Ideology, Agency, Class and the
Novel"
Narrative - Volume 13, Number 1, January 2005, pp. 46-66
The Ohio State University Press
Donaldson,
Elizabeth J. "The Corpus of the Madwoman: Toward a Feminist Disability
Studies Theory of Embodiment and Mental Illness"
NWSA Journal - Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2002, pp. 99-119
Indiana University Press
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