The surprising hidden history behind Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Why did Charlotte Brontë go to such great lengths on the publication of her acclaimed, best-selling novel, Jane Eyre, to conceal its authorship from her family, close friends, and the press? In The Secret History of Jane Eyre, John Pfordresher tells the enthralling story of Brontë’s compulsion to write her masterpiece and why she then turned around and vehemently disavowed it. Few people know how quickly Brontë composed Jane Eyre. Nor do many know that she wrote it during a devastating and anxious period in her life. Thwarted in her passionate, secret, and forbidden love for a married man, she found herself living in a home suddenly imperiled by the fact that her father, a minister, the sole support of the family, was on the brink of blindness. After his hasty operation, as she nursed him in an isolated apartment kept dark to help him heal his eyes, Brontë began writing Jane Eyre, an invigorating romance that, despite her own fears and sorrows, gives voice to a powerfully rebellious and ultimately optimistic woman’s spirit. The Secret History of Jane Eyre expands our understanding of both Jane Eyre and the inner life of its notoriously private author. Pfordresher connects the people Brontë knew and the events she lived to the characters and story in the novel, and he explores how her fecund imagination used her inner life to shape one of the world’s most popular novels. By aligning his insights into Brontë’s life with the timeless characters, harrowing plot, and forbidden romance of Jane Eyre, Pfordresher reveals the remarkable parallels between one of literature’s most beloved heroines and her passionate creator, and arrives at a new understanding of Brontë’s brilliant, immersive genius.

Seminar paper from the year 1997 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0 (A), University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistics), course: Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre; Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights, language: English, abstract: Introduction In order to gain a broader understanding of Charlotte Brontë′s description of her characters in "Jane Eyre", I consider it necessary to take a close look at the social and economic conditions in Great Britain in the 19th century. Charlotte′s objectives and their realisation can only be understood against the framework of outer conditions and limitations the author as well as her characters were exposed to. Writing about people of her own time naturally gives an author first-hand authenticity and a close insight into contemporary views. However, it may also limit her point of view to her own personal sphere which may be, as in the case of CharlotteBrontë, influenced by her upbringing and limited by many material and social restraints. Therefore, a look at the overall conditions of life in Great Britain during the Early Victorian Age may make the author′s choice of characters and events as well as any omissions she intentionally or unintentionally made, more understandable.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Technical University of Chemnitz, course: Proseminar: Charlotte Bronte "Jane Eyre", language: English, abstract: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a lively composition of the imagery of landscape in correspondence to the experiences and the values of the heroine. Nature, one of the major themes in the novel, is expressed by four natural elements: fire, water, earth, and air, which are in a constant interaction. Fire, the most important element, has a symbolic function in the novel. Above all, it forms the character of the heroine Jane Eyre. Moreover, the varying facets of fire are a basic component of the novel and a determinant part in each locale of the setting. The story is a classic example of the congruence of the natural and the spiritual: the natural existence of fire is always related to Jane Eyre’s state of mind and expressed by metaphors (Duthie 1986:134-137). In the first chapter of my paper I will give a general definition of the term and analyse the symbolism of the different types of the element on the basis of examples. In the next chapter I will have a closer look at the element fire in relation to Jane Eyre’s state of mind.

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This collection of the works of Emily, Anne and Charlotte Bront? includes the following novels: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront?, published in 1847, Shirley by Charlotte Bront?, published in 1849, Villette by Charlotte Bront?, published in 1853, The Professor by Charlotte Bront?, published after her death in 1857, Emma by Charlotte Bront? (unfinished), published in 1860, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront?, published in 1848, Agnes Grey by Anne Bront?, published in 1847, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bront?, published in 1848.