Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816, the daughter of a curate in Yorkshire. Her mother died in 1821 and she and her 5 siblings were left to the tender mercies of a grim aunt who kept discipline high and all child like tendencies were strictly repressed. Charlotte and her sisters Anne and Emily all retreated into an imaginary worlds which they each wrote about. Eventually they each published novels, Emily published Withering Heights, Anne Agnes Grey and Charlotte Jane Eyre. Anne and Emily both died before 1850, and Charlotte was left to nurse her father and care for the domestic side of life. Parts of Jane Eyre's personality are said to be directly from Charlotte.

Jane Eyre

I didn't think I would like this book because I had seen the old movie and it was so dark and brooding that I couldn't truly get into the story. While the novel does have it's dark side, it is also a novel of one womans dream of love and independence and her fight to gain it. It is full of hope and light, passion and love and it is well worth the time to read it, possibly more than once.