I recently bought a hardback version of Jane Eyre, with illustrations by Marjolein Bastin. It looked really pretty, so I decided to add it to the collection. But when I got it and opened it up, there are a series of supplemental materials that come tucked in the pages.
The first one is this bio/fact sheet on the life of Charlotte Brontë. I’ll include the picture I took of it, but then I also copied the text down so it’s readable. I’m interested enough at this point to want to look into her life more, and even put the biography of her by Elizabeth Gaskell (mentioned below) on my list. I had read bits of Charlotte Bronte’s bio before but hadn’t really put together how much of Jane Eyre was drawn from her own personal experiences. Having come to really appreciate the novel, I want to know more about the writer.
Charlotte Brontë
Born: April 21, 1816
Died: March 31, 1855
Profession: Author (Pseudonym: Currer Bell)
Parents: Patrick Brontë (Pastor), Maria Branwell
Siblings: Maria, Elisabeth, Patrick, Emily, Jane, and Anne
Education: Cowan Bridge (Convent School in Lancashire) and Roe Head (Mirfield)
Works: Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Vilette (1853), The Professor (1857, posthumously), Emma (1860, posthumously, incomplete)
Biography:
Charlotte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, as the third-oldest child of the Brontë family. Soon after the family moved to Haworth, her mother died of cancer. At that time, Charlotte was just five years old. In 1824, Charlotte and her siblings were sent to the Cowan Bridge School, which was a boarding school for the daughters of middle-class clergymen. Tuberculosis broke out a year later, and her sisters Maria and Elisabeth both fell ill and died of consumption in 1825. The extreme conditions at the Cowan Bridge School served as Charlotte’s template for the Lowood Boarding School so vividly portrayed in Jane Eyre.
When Anne, Emily, and Charlotte were taken home to Haworth after the sister’s passing, their mother’s sister, Elizabeth Branwell, cared for the children. It was during this bleak period at the parsonage that the sisters began to invent stories together.
In 1831, Charlotte was the only one among the children to be sent to the Roe Head School in Mirfield, where she met Ellen Nussey. For years thereafter, Charlotte kept up the contact with Ellen and regularly sent her letters. She also got along particularly well with one of the teachers, Miss Wooler, which led to a close friendship. It’s easy to see parallels between the Ellen and Miss Wooler of Charlotte’s life and Helen Burns and Miss Temple from Jane Eyre. Charlotte finished the school with the distinction of “best student” and returned as a teacher to Roe Head just a few years later.
After working as a governess from 1839 to 1841, she decided to fund her own school in Haworth. To implement this idea, which eventually failed due to low enrollment, she travelled to Brussels with Emily in order to improve her French. At the Pensionnat des Demoiselles boarding school, Charlotte fell unhappily in love with the married principal Constantin Héger. She returned to Haworth in 1844, and two years later she published her first work: a poetry volume that she authored along with her sisters. Her first success, however, came when she published Jane Eyre under the male pseudonym “Currer Bell”. When Charlotte revealed her true identity, she experienced a short period of fame and made regular appearances in London’s literary circles. She published additional novels, but they never achieved the same degree of recognition as Jane Eyre.
In 1848, Charlotte, Anne and Emily were living together and enjoying a carefree existence thanks to their collective success. Then their brother Patrick died in September as a result of years-long alcohol-dependence. Shortly after that tragedy, Emily died from tuberculosis, and Anne succumbed to the same disease in 1849. Not much later, Charlotte met Elizabeth Gaskell, who would eventually become a close friend and even publish The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
At the age of thirty-eight, Charlotte married her father’s auxiliary pastor, Arthur Bell Nicholls. Shortly thereafter she became pregnant, but she began to experience severe morning sickness, otherwise known as hyperemesis gravidarum. On March 31, 1855, Charlotte Brontë died as a result of dehydration, malnutrition, and grave pneumonia.