Brontë Sisters (Charlotte)
Charlotte Brontë
6 min read
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) was a British novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters. Her novel Jane Eyre (1847), published under the male pseudonym Currer Bell, has become a classic of English literature.
Famous Quotes
« I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will. »
« Reader, I married him. »
Key Facts
- Born on 21 April 1816 in Thornton, Yorkshire
- Published a collection of poems in 1846 with her sisters Emily and Anne under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
- Published Jane Eyre in 1847 under the name Currer Bell, an immediate success
- Went on to write Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853)
- Died on 31 March 1855 in Haworth, pregnant, at the age of 38
Works & Achievements
The first book published by the three sisters under pseudonyms. It sold only two copies, but marked the beginning of their literary career.
Charlotte's masterpiece, telling the story of a young orphaned governess. A revolutionary novel for its strong and independent narrator, it became a classic of English literature.
A social novel set during the workers' revolts against machinery. Charlotte wrote it while deep in mourning for her brother and sisters.
A largely autobiographical novel inspired by her stay in Brussels, considered by many to be her most accomplished work.
The first novel Charlotte wrote, but rejected during her lifetime; it was published posthumously, two years after her death.
Anecdotes
In 1826, Charlotte's father gave her brother Branwell a box of twelve wooden soldiers. The four Brontë children seized them, gave them names, and invented imaginary kingdoms such as Angria and Glass Town. They recorded these sagas in tiny books written in a hand so small that a magnifying glass is needed to read them.
To be taken seriously in a literary world dominated by men, the three sisters chose masculine pen names while keeping their initials: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Emily became Ellis Bell, and Anne became Acton Bell. Jane Eyre thus appeared in 1847 under the name of a man who did not exist.
As a child, Charlotte was sent with her sisters to the harsh Cowan Bridge school, where her two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, contracted tuberculosis and died in 1825. Charlotte later transformed this painful memory by depicting the dreadful Lowood boarding school in Jane Eyre.
In 1848, an unscrupulous publisher allowed people to believe that all the novels signed “Bell” were the work of a single person. Outraged, Charlotte and Anne took the train to London and presented themselves to their astonished publisher in order to prove, in person, that Currer and Acton Bell were indeed two distinct sisters.
Charlotte endured a series of terrible bereavements: in less than nine months, between September 1848 and May 1849, she lost her brother Branwell, then Emily, then Anne. The last survivor of the siblings, she went on writing in the silent parsonage of Haworth, often walking alone across the wind-swept moors.
Primary Sources
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
Reader, I married him.
We did not like to declare ourselves women, for we had a vague impression that authoresses were liable to be looked on with prejudice; so we chose ambiguous first names, Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.
Key Places
Village where Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, before the family moved away.
Stone house where the Brontë family lived from 1820, on the edge of the moors and the churchyard. Charlotte wrote her novels there and died there in 1855.
A boarding school for clergymen's daughters with very harsh conditions, where the two eldest sisters died. It inspired Lowood School in Jane Eyre.
School where Charlotte was first a pupil and then a teacher, and where she formed lasting friendships with Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor.
Belgian school where Charlotte and Emily studied and then taught in 1842-1843. This stay inspired the novels The Professor and Villette.
London publishing house of Jane Eyre, which Charlotte visited in 1848 to reveal her true identity to her publisher.