Jane Eyre [antikvár]

CHARLOTTE BRONTË Charlotte Bronte was the third of six children born to clergyman Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell. Patricks roots lay in Ireland, but he studied at Cambridge University and accepted curacies in various parts of England before taking up residence at Howarth Parsonage in West Yorkshire in 1820, when Charlotte was four. Her youngest sister, Anne, was born that year, but Maria Brontes death soon after brought family upheaval. Marias sister, a forbidding character, was installed to help with parenting and domestic duties. The children received limited formal schooling but devoured books and engaged in imaginative play both at home and on the surrounding moorlands. They wove elaborate tales around imaginary kingdoms, showing the fertile minds of budding novelists as they recorded the adventures in miniature books. Charlotte became the oldest sibling in 1825 when her sisters Maria and Elizabeth both died. Patricks limited means meant that Charlotte and her sisters needed gainful employment, to which end she took up a teaching post in 1835. Later, she worked as a governess, following the career path of her most famous heroine Jane Eyre. It was an unhappy period, which Charlotte attempted to address by travelling to Europe and acquiring language skills with a view to establishing a school with her siblings. When that venture failed to bear fruit, Charlotte looked to exploit the sisters' passion for writing. In 1846 a volume of verse titled Poems by Currer, ElHs and Acton Bell was published at their own expense. The pseudonyms were deliberately ambiguous because, as