Introduction

CHARLOTTE BRONTË, born in 1816, was the daughter of an Irishman who married a Cornishwoman and became a priest of the Church of England. He had charge of a church in a wild part of Yorkshire. There were six children. Four of the girls, including Charlotte and her sister Emily (who later wrote the novel Wuthering Heights) were sent to a school at Cowan's Bridge: this school is described in Chapters 6-11 of Jane Eyre. Helen Burns in the story is an exact picture of Charlotte's elder sister Maria and of her unkind treatment at this school. Charlotte afterwards went to another school at Roehead, and later became a teacher there. Having the idea of starting a school of her own, she went to Brussels to study French: she draws a picture of this part of her life in her novel Villette. Her school was a failure. Her father began to go blind; her brother became a heavy drinker; her sister Emily developed a disease of the lungs. At this time Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre. Her other novels were The Professor, Shirley and Villette. She married Arthur Nicholls (a priest of the Church of England) and died one year later, in 1855.