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Browse the list of books by Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre and other classics. See ratings, reviews, editions, and languages of her works.
Learn about the life and achievements of Charlotte Brontë, the eldest of the Brontë sisters and the author of Jane Eyre. Explore her early years, education, literary career, marriage, and death, as well as her fictional world of Glass Town and Angria.
Complete order of Charlotte Bronte books in Publication Order and Chronological Order.
Browse the collection of books by Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre and other classics. Find different editions, formats, and genres of her novels and poems.
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Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist best known for Jane Eyre (1847), the story of an independent young governess who overcomes hardships while remaining true to her principles. It blended moral realism with Gothic elements. Her other novels included Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853).
What were Charlotte Brontë’s siblings’ names?
Charlotte Brontë was one of six children. Her two eldest sisters (Maria and Elizabeth) died when she was young. She had a brother named Patrick Branwell and two sisters, Emily and Anne, who were also novelists. The three sisters published together under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
What was Charlotte Brontë’s childhood like?
Her father, Patrick Brontë, was an Anglican clergyman. He moved his family to Haworth amid the Yorkshire moors in 1820. When they weren’t away at school, the Brontë children learned and played there, writing and telling romantic tales for one another and inventing imaginative games played out at home or on the desolate moors.
Where did Charlotte Brontë go to school?
Her father was Patrick Brontë (1777–1861), an Anglican clergyman. Irish-born, he had changed his name from the more commonplace Brunty. After serving in several parishes, he moved with his wife, Maria Branwell Brontë, and their six small children to Haworth amid the Yorkshire moors in 1820, having been awarded a rectorship there. Soon after, Mrs. Brontë and the two eldest children (Maria and Elizabeth) died, leaving the father to care for the remaining three girls—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—and a boy, Branwell. Their upbringing was aided by an aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, who left her native Cornwall and took up residence with the family at Haworth.
In 1824 Charlotte and Emily, together with their elder sisters before their deaths, attended Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, near Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire. The fees were low, the food unattractive, and the discipline harsh. Charlotte condemned the school (perhaps exaggeratedly) long years afterward in Jane Eyre, under the thin disguise of Lowood Institution, and its principal, the Reverend William Carus Wilson, has been accepted as the counterpart of Mister Brocklehurst in the novel.
Charlotte and Emily returned home in June 1825, and for more than five years the Brontë children learned and played there, writing and telling romantic tales for one another and inventing imaginative games played out at home or on the desolate moors.
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In 1831 Charlotte was sent to Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, near Huddersfield, where she stayed a year and made some lasting friendships; her correspondence with one of her friends, Ellen Nussey, continued until her death and has provided much of the current knowledge of her life. In 1832 she went home to teach her sisters but in 1835 returned to Roe Head as a teacher. She wished to improve her family’s position, and that was the only outlet that was offered to her unsatisfied energies. Branwell, moreover, was to start on his career as an artist, and it became necessary to supplement the family resources. The work, with its inevitable restrictions, was uncongenial to Charlotte. She fell into ill health and melancholia and in the summer of 1838 terminated her engagement.
Learn about the life and works of Charlotte Brontë, the English novelist who wrote Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette. Explore her childhood, education, family, and literary career with Britannica.
Jane Eyre is a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1847 under the pen name "Currer Bell". It is a classic of English literature, a bildungsroman that follows the life and love of its heroine, Jane Eyre.
Browse and download 14 books by Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, Villette, and Shirley. See also her poems, biographical notes, and translations in different languages.
