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Charlotte Brontë

Born

in Thornton, Yorkshire, England

April 21, 1816

Died

March 31, 1855

Genre

Literature & Fiction

Influences

Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë ...more

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Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabe Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.

In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.

At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:

'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'

After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.

Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. Teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family -- partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.

Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855. ...more

Combine Editions
Charlotte Brontë’s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 3,639,579 ratings · 101,941 reviews · 2,031 distinct works • Similar authors

	Jane Eyre 4.14 avg rating — 1,985,317 ratings — published 1847 — 14673 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Villette 3.77 avg rating — 69,715 ratings — published 1853 — 4038 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Shirley 3.75 avg rating — 33,644 ratings — published 1849 — 2263 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Professor 3.56 avg rating — 24,181 ratings — published 1857 — 2853 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Emma by Charlotte Brontë (Creator), Constance Savery 4.03 avg rating — 5,848 ratings — published 1860 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Charlotte and Emily Brontë: The Complete Novels by Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë 4.35 avg rating — 3,905 ratings — published 1920 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic with a Blood-Sucking Twist 3.70 avg rating — 3,909 ratings — published 2010 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Jane Eyre / Les Hauts de Hurle-Vent / Agnes Grey 4.25 avg rating — 1,511 ratings — published 1847 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	جين إير - الجزء الأول by Charlotte Brontë, حلمي مراد (مترجم) 4.17 avg rating — 566 ratings — published 1847 — 81 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell by Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë 3.93 avg rating — 572 ratings — published 1848 — 179 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Charlotte Brontë…

Series by Charlotte Brontë

La saga de Verdópolis (2 books)
by

Charlotte Brontë,

Libby Purves (Foreword)

3.22 avg rating — 240 ratings

El reino de Angria (3 books)
by

Charlotte Brontë,

Paula García Manchón (Translator)

3.00 avg rating — 238 ratings

Shirley (3 volumes) (3 books)
by

Charlotte Brontë,

Currer Bell

3.79 avg rating — 39 ratings

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Polls

May 2016 Old School Classic Poll

1877, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 245 pages

43 votes, 19.0%

1880, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 776 pages

37 votes, 16.4%

1853, Villette by Charlotte Brontë, 573 pages

29 votes, 12.8%

1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 438 pages

21 votes, 9.3%

1796, The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, 386 pages

16 votes, 7.1%

1867, Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, 201 pages

15 votes, 6.6%

1895, Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, 310 pages

13 votes, 5.8%

1833, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, 240 pages

11 votes, 4.9%

1886, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, 445 pages

10 votes, 4.4%

1869, Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, 460 pages

9 votes, 4.0%

1864, Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 477 pages

8 votes, 3.5%

1785, The Adventures of Baron Münchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe, 224 pages

8 votes, 3.5%

1859, Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, 567 pages

6 votes, 2.7%

226 total votes

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