Charlotte Bronte

‘A little, plain, provincial, sickly-looking old maid’

‘yet what passion, what fire in her!’

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, in 1816, the third of six children

Charlotte was sent with three of her sisters; Emily, Maria and Elizabeth, to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). It’s poor conditions, Charlotte maintained, permanently affected her health and physical development and hastened the deaths of her two elder sisters, Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who died of tuberculosis in May of 1826 soon after they were removed from the school.

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte, Emily and Anne published a joint collection of poetry under the assumed names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Charlotte continued to use the name "Currer Bell" when she published her first two novels.

Her book had sparked a movement in regards to feminism in literature. The main character, Jane Eyre, in her novel Jane Eyre, was a parallel to herself, a woman who was strong.

Charlotte Bronte

Although classed as a Victorian writer, Charlotte was just as influenced by the reign of William IV - he inherited the throne when he was sixty-four years old. His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished throughout the British Empire, and the Reform Act 1832 refashioned the British electoral system.

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre attracted a great deal of admiration – Thackeray described it as ‘the masterwork of a great genius’.

Charlotte’s novels sprang from the passionate need to demonstrate that a good life for a woman, no less than for a man, is a satisfied one.