Jane Eyre (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  From the Pages of Jane Eyre

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Charlotte Brontë

  The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre

  Introduction

  Dedication

  Preface to the Second Edition

  Note to the Third Edition

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII - Conclusion

  Endnotes

  Inspired by Jane Eyre

  Comments & Questions

  For Further Reading

  From the Pages of Jane Eyre

  I could not answer the ceaseless inward question—why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. (page 21)

  Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. (page 130)

  “You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not; I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience; your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it.” (page 170)

  The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. (page 175)

  I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. (page 207)

  Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast, and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons, a silent conquest might have been won.

  (page 221)

  “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.” (page 297)

  Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine! May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love! (page 374)

  Reader, I married him. (page 520)

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  Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell.

  Originally published in mass market format in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics

  with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,

  Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

  This trade paperback format published in 2005.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright © 2003 by Susan Ostrov Weisser.

  Note on Charlotte Brontë, The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre,

  Inspired by Jane Eyre, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

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  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics

  colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  Jane Eyre

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-117-1 ISBN-10: 1-59308-117-0

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43386-1

  LC Control Number 2004111992

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

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  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

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  Charlotte Brontë

  Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816, in Thornton, Yorkshire, in the north of England, the third child of the Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. In 1820 the family moved to neighboring Haworth, where Reverend Brontë was offered a lifetime curacy. The following year Mrs. Brontë died of cancer, and her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, moved in to help raise the six children. The four eldest sisters—Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth—attended Cowan Bridge School, until Maria and Elizabeth contracted what was probably tuberculosis and died within months of each other, at which point Charlotte and Emily returned home. The four remaining siblings—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne—played on the Yorkshire moors and dreamed up fanciful, fabled worlds, creating a constant stream of tales, such as the “Young Men” plays (1826) and “Our Fellows” (1827).

  Reverend Brontë kept his children abreast of current events; among these were the 1829 parliamentary debates centering on the Catholic Question, in which the duke of Wellington was a leading voice. Charlotte’s awareness of politics filtered into her fictional creations, as in the siblings’ saga The Islanders (1827), about an imaginary world peopled with the Brontë children’s real-life heroes, in which Wellington plays a central role as Charlotte’s chosen character.

  Throughout her childhood, Charlotte had access to the circulating library at the nearby town of Keighley. She knew the Bible and read the works of Shakespeare, George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott, and she particularly admired William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. In 1831 and 1832, Charlotte attended Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, and she returned there as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. After working for a couple of years as a governess, Charlotte, with her sister Emily, traveled to Brussels to study, with the goal of opening their own school, but this dream did not materialize once she returned to Haworth in 1844.

  In 1846 the sisters published their collected poems under the pen names Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. That same year Charlotte finished her first novel, The Professor, but it was not accepted for publication. However, she began work on Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847 and met with instant success. Though some critics saw impropriety in the core
of the story—the relationship between a middle-aged man and the young, naive governess who works for him—most reviewers praised the novel, helping to ensure its popularity. One of Charlotte’s literary heroes, William Makepeace Thackeray, wrote her a letter to express his complete enjoyment of the novel and to praise her writing style, as did the influential literary critic G. H. Lewes.

  Following the deaths of Branwell and Emily Brontë in 1848 and Anne in 1849, Charlotte made trips to London, where she began to move in literary circles that included such luminaries as Thackeray, whom she met for the first time in 1849; his daughter described Brontë as “a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady.” In 1850 Charlotte met the noted British writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she formed a lasting friendship and who, at the request of Reverend Brontë, later became her biographer.

  In 1854 Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, a curate at Haworth who worked with her father. However, less than a year later Charlotte fell seriously ill, perhaps with tuberculosis, and she died on March 31, 1855. At the time of her death, Charlotte Brontë was a celebrated author. The 1857 publication of her first novel, The Professor, and of Gaskell’s biography of her life only heightened her renown.

  The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre

  1816 Charlotte Brontë is born on April 21 in Thornton, En gland, the third of six children of the Reverend Patrick and Maria Branwell Brontë.

  1817- 1820 Charlotte’s younger siblings, Patrick Branwell, Emily, and Anne, are born.

  1820 The Brontë family moves to Haworth, where Reverend Brontë has been offered a lifetime curacy.

  1821 Charlotte’s mother, Maria, dies, and her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, moves into the Brontë household to help raise the six young children.

  1824 Charlotte and Emily, along with their older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, attend Cowan Bridge School.

  1825 Maria and Elizabeth contract what is probably tuberculosis and die. Charlotte and Emily are pulled out of school to return home to Haworth.

  1826 The four surviving siblings create the “Young Men” plays, the first of their imaginative fictional writings, which are followed in 1827 by “Our Fellows” and “The Islanders.”

  1831- 1832 Charlotte attends Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head.

  1835 Charlotte returns to Roe Head as a teacher. Emily attends as a student, but stays only three months; Anne takes her place, studying there until 1837.

  1837 Charlotte writes to Robert Southey, the British poet lau reate, to ask his opinion of her poetry. His disheartening response implies that while Charlotte displays what Words worth calls “faculty of verse,” this is nothing extraordinary in a time of so many decent poets. He goes on to declare that women have no business in literature.

  1838 Charlotte resigns from her teaching position at Roe Head.

  1839 She works as a governess, first in Lothersdale and later in

  1841 Rawdon.

  1842 Charlotte and Emily travel to Brussels to study at Pension nat Héger, where they read, among other things, works by French and German Romantics. They stay less than a year, returning to Haworth because their aunt Elizabeth Bran well has died.

  1843- 1844 Charlotte spends a second year at the Pensionnat in Brus sels honing her French and German language skills. She develops a strong emotional attachment to her married employer and former teacher, Constantin Héger, a situa tion that may have informed the Jane Eyre love story. Char lotte returns to Haworth in January 1844.

  1846 In February, Charlotte sends a manuscript, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (the pen names of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, respectively), to the London publisher Aylott and Jones. The poems are published in May at the sisters’ expense; only two copies are sold. In June Charlotte completes her first novel, The Professor. By the end of the year she has begun work on Jane Eyre.

  1847 While Charlotte’s manuscript for The Professor is rejected by various publishers, her sisters’ novels—Anne’s Agnes Grey and Emily’s Wuthen‘ng Heights-are accepted for pub lication by Thomas Cautley Newby. Charlotte approaches another publisher, Smith, Elder and Co., with Jane Eyre, which is published in October to instant success, over shadowing the publication in December of her sisters’ nov els and surpassing them in acclaim. All three sisters are still publishing under their “Bell” pen names.

  1848 Amid growing rumors that there is only one “Bell” writer, Charlotte and Anne travel to London to prove otherwise. Charlotte’s publisher, George Smith, learns the truth of the Brontës’ identities but is sworn to protect their secret. In September, Branwell Brontë dies after a sustained bout with depression, alcoholism, and drug use; in December, Emily dies of tuberculosis.

  1849 In May, Anne dies of tuberculosis. Charlotte’s novel Shirley is published by Smith, Elder and Co. In November, Char

  lotte travels again to London, this time as a well-known author. She meets one of her literary idols, William Mak epeace Thackeray.

  1850 Charlotte returns to London. In August, she travels to Win dermere, where she meets the writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she becomes close friends. In December, Char lotte writes the prefaces and biographical notes for her sisters’ novels; she reveals the true identities of the “Bells” and works to protect the posthumous reputations of Emily and Anne, who have received some criticism for their “coarse” and “nihilistic” writings. Depressed by the loss of her siblings, Charlotte writes little fiction this year but reads Jane Austen for the first time; she disparages Aus ten’s novels as shrewd and observant, but without senti ment.

  1853 Charlotte’s novel Villette is published in January. In April, she spends a week in Manchester with Elizabeth Gaskell; in September, Gaskell visits her at Haworth.

  1854 In June, Charlotte marries Arthur Bell Nicholls, whom she has known since 1845, when he began work as a curate at Haworth.

  1855 Charlotte is happily married for a few months, but early in the year she becomes ill; she dies on March 31.

  1857 Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë is published, as is Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, though the latter’s re lease is partly obscured by the enormous interest Gaskell’s work receives.

  1928 In August, Haworth Parsonage opens to the public as the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

  Introduction

  Matthew Arnold famously characterized Charlotte Brontë’s writing as full of “rebellion and rage,” yet that description does not easily square with the most famous line of her best-known novel, Jane Eyre: “Reader, I married him.” Coming as it does at the conclusion of a tempestuous series of ordeals in the romance of the governess Jane Eyre and her wealthy employer, Rochester, it implies a conventional happy ending for a heroine, her domestic reward for virtue. Between these two differing accounts of Jane Eyre as subversive and conservative lies a complex and challenging novel full of paradoxes, not least of which is that it appears regularly on lists of classics, yet has had enduring mass appeal as a romance as well.

  In Jane Eyre we have that unusual monument in the history of literature, a novel considered from the first a work of high literary merit that is also an immediate and enormous popular success. Indeed, it continues to be widely read both in and out of the academic setting. While it is often “required” reading in secondary schools and universities, it has also been adapted into numerous films, television productions, theatrical plays, and at least one Broadway musical.a The first of these productions took place in London less than four months after the novel’s publication, much to the dismay of its author, who feared, like most authors, that the play would misrepresent her work. In fact, it is not surprising that most adaptations of Jane Eyre have selectively emphasized the melodramatic Gothic and romantic elements of the novel at the expense of less easily dramatized aspects, such as its passages about religion or the condition of women. Yet these are just as integral to its meaning as the melodrama for which it is remembered, if not more so.

  In some ways it is difficult to account for the con
tinued stature and popular appeal of a work that has been read as both feminist and antifeminist, radical and conservative, highly original and highly derivative, Romantic and Victorian. Certainly many readers, beginning with George Eliot in the nineteenth century, have been disturbed by the way the plot hinges on a moral dilemma involving antiquated divorce laws and nineteenth-century notions of women’s sexual purity. Some critics, such as Virginia Woolf, have seen the novel as too angry for its own literary good; others, notably some modern feminist critics, as not explicitly angry enough. Why does this novel about the moral trials of an impoverished and orphaned governess continue to hold such fascination for a modern audience? Is it the passionate romance, the Cinderella ending, the incipient feminism of its views about the suppression of women?

  Most readers who respond to the novel agree that the appeal of Jane Eyre lies in its intensity of feeling, richness of language, and forceful representation of passion in a decidedly dramatic plot. Even at its publication in 1847, critics and the public recognized that, for better or worse, Jane Eyre was something different : a novel about a woman written with a man’s freedom, the freedom to portray the indecorum of a heroine who has outbursts of anger as a child and uncontrollable passion as an adult, who confesses her desire openly when she thinks it is hopeless and refuses the passive and dependent role in romance. All these violated deeply entrenched social codes of femininity and respectability, and shocked some of Brontë’s early critics. Miss Eyre is “rather a brazen Miss,” cried one contemporary reader (letter from John Gibson Lockhart, 1847); another called the novel “dangerous,” filled with “outrages on decorum.” “[The author] cannot appreciate the hold which a daily round of simple duties and pure pleasures has on those who are content to practice and enjoy them,” sniffed another reviewer (Anne Mozley, The Christian Remembrancer, April 1853).