Langtext

The Penguin English Library Edition of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

'The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself'

Passionate, poetic and revolutionary, Jane Eyre is a novel of naked emotional power. Its story of a defiant, fiercely intelligent woman who refuses to accept her appointed place in society - and instead finds love on her own terms - has become famous as one of the greatest romances ever written, but it is also a brooding Gothic mystery, a profound depiction of character and a transformative work of the imagination.

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Rejected by her guardians and offered cold charity at an orphanage, Jane Eyre has come to rely on her own intelligence and strength of character to guide her through life. But when she becomes governess at Thornfield Hall, working for the gruff Mr Rochester, she finds a man who may be her equal - and a secret that threatens to destroy them both.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Yorkshire in 1816. As a child, she was sent to boarding school, where two of her sisters died; she was subsequently educated at home with her younger siblings, Emily, Branwell and Anne. As an adult, Charlotte worked as a governess and taught in a school in Brussels. Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pen-name Currer Bell, and was followed by Shirley (1848), Villette (1853) and The Professor (posthumously published in 1857). In 1854 Charlotte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died in March of the following year.