elizabeth gaskell the life of charlotte brontë

But none that I’ve encountered quite compares to Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, written in 1857, just two years after Brontë’s tragic, early death.īrontë fans may be familiar with Gaskell, too - the author of many well-known novels in her day, including North and South, which in recent years became a popular miniseries. There are many ways to learn more about Charlotte Brontë, the mind and life behind Thornfield Hall as well as the novels Shirley and Villette - including contemporary biographies, and even a recent BBC film ( To Walk Invisible). And learning that both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights - novels distinguished by such candid, arresting characters - were written by sisters from a family of passionate, introverted readers, who often had only themselves and the moors for company, drew me into their lives. Enough so that I’ve returned again and again to the book, the films, and most recently, the audiobook (Thandie Newton’s reading is just luminous!).

Jane’s outspokenness, her determination to build a life for herself, her revelation as she hears Rochester’s voice one night, calling out to her over the miles - her whole story filled me with its lonely strength, haunted landscape, and its tribute to a woman’s thorny will. I can remember a classmate at the desk next to mine, shaking the book in her hand, saying, “Who are these people?”īut even then, in my ponytail and jeans, I heard Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre speak to me. It was, at times, a bit of a leap for us. Assigned Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights in classrooms, we were transported to windy moors and ghostly manors without much context or fanfare.

Many of us first encountered the Brontë sisters in high school or college.

Elizabeth gaskell the life of charlotte brontë