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? You will find answers in…
BOOK ONE: The Secret History of Jane Eyre, written by John Pfordresher
In this well-researched book, John Pfordresher tells the enthralling story of Brontë’s compulsion to write her masterpiece, but also why she later turned around and vehemently disavowed it.
Being a scholar and also a curious reader, my professor brother John, researched and wrote a book to discover some answers. The result: The Secret History of Jane Eyre: How Charlotte Bronte Wrote Her Masterpiece, which was published in 2017 by W.W Norton and Company. I immediately got a copy and read it.
John writes: Jane Eyre is a novel about, among other things, mutually shared, passionate love, something Charlotte Bronte had not yet experienced when she wrote the book. ….And yet the romance between Mr. Rochester and Jane is one of Bronte’s greatest achievements as a writer of fiction.
This history is surprising, and yet I totally agree, remembering a time in my youth, when if my friends and I asked each other what we were reading, what we would recommend, Jane Eyre was always mentioned.
Though the book was certainly dated, there were passages that could apply to young women of any age.
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will.”
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me to do so.”
“I am not an angel…and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”
BOOK TWO: The Invention of Charlotte Bronte, by Graham Watson
Reviewer, Kathryn Hughes, first refers to a biography of Bronte that was published in 1857, by a friend, Elizabeth Gaskell. People were angry about the content, and when writers today seek to discover more about Bronte, that book always comes up. But Hughes writes that now Mr. Watson, who has done his research, “has produced a biography of a biography and a gripping testimony in to the enduring problems that all biographers face in pursuit of their art: worries over law of copyright and libel etc.” And though Hughes has her quibbles, she finds this latest book, “useful…for the reader who wants to understand the twists and turns, revelations and silences…by which a literary legend endures.”
P.S. You could also just….reread JANE EYRE!!
2 Responses
I loved the Bronte sisters! I read them both young. I think my tastes were more literary in my youth.
Am I surprised? No. I am sure you were an amazing reader. My mother always led me to books that she had read, books she felt were worth the time and would stimulate living as well as the love of reading. I grew to see that. If you are going to sit with a novel, it might as well be something that opens you up, either emotionally or mentally. Thanks for this!