Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Bronte

Summary

Charlotte Brontë's first novel, published in 1847, was based in part on the author's own days in a brutal boarding school where two of her sisters died of tuberculosis; her characterization of the place in her first published work was an act of revenge. The novel's heroine is a plain, impoverished, but spirited young governess who not only wins the heart of her employer-the jaded, Byronic Mr. Rochester-but manages to defy the social conventions of her time to become a strong and fulfilled adult. Told by Jane herself as she looks back over her life, JANE EYRE became the prototype for the classic Gothic novel set in a wild, windswept location where a naïve heroine must cope with ghosts and the supernatural. It has also inspired countless romance novels and created the bitter, brooding hero who is brought back to life by the goodness and innocence of the woman who loves him. Brontë's tale, however, transcends the genres it inspired. Jane's search for love and for meaning also includes a refusal to accept less than she feels is her due. Brontë sees that quest as a moral one, and a critical exploration of the paradoxes of the English class system and of Victorian gender relations is an integral part of the book. But the main reason for its position as an enduring classic is that JANE EYRE is a stirring and satisfying tale, a page-turner. It was a bestseller in its day and remains popular today-the quintessential coming-of-age story that still has resonance for young women who are struggling to find the balance between romantic love and personal freedom.

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Media Reviews

"Talk about respect for the feminine! Which, it turns out, is simply respect for the soul. That this author was sent by Providence...to show me the difference between convention and morality, I count as one of the great blessings of a blessed life."    -- Alice Walker

   -- O (The Oprah Magazine)

"...the masterwork of a great genius."    -- William Makepeace Thackeray

"At the conclusion of 'Jane Eyre' we do not feel so much that we have read a book, as that we have parted from a most singular and eloquent woman, met by chance upon a Yorkshire hill, who has gone with us for a time and told us the whole of her life history."    -- Virginia Woolf

"Reader, if you have yet to discover the unique voice of Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre', you have a splendid delight awaiting you...Like 'Villette', 'Jane Eyre' is a story of hunger; unlike that more complex, and perhaps more aesthetically pure novel, it is a story of hunger satisfied...'Jane Eyre' is remarkable for its forthright declaration of its heroine's passions and appetites...She is ravenous with appetite.    -- Joyce Carol Oates

"So we open 'Jane Eyre'....The writer has us by the hand, forces us along her road, makes us see what she sees, never leaves us for a moment or allows us to forget her. At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Brontë....It is the red and fitful glow of the heart's fire which illumines her page."    -- Virginia Woolf

"The most immediate surprise of 'Jane Eyre' for today's readers is the directness, even bluntness, of the young heroine's voice. Here is no prissy little-girl sensibility, but a startlingly independent, even skeptical perspective....Another surprise of 'Jane Eyre' is the seemingly 'real-that is, non-romantic-nature of the lovers-to-be....Why does 'Jane Eyre' retain its appeal after so many decades, and so many intervening novels of virginal young heroines, Byronic moody mysterious elder men, and melodramatic disclosures? One answer is, simply, the quality of Jane's and Rochester's characters. They are believable. They are intelligent, yet emotional, superior beings who are human, even flawed; as the 19th-century reader would have discerned, they are models for us all."    -- Joyce Carol Oates

   -- Salon

"The suggestive use of language and the magical quality of her writing, which distinguishes Charlotte Brontë equally from her predecessor Jane Austen and her successor George Eliot, is one of the characteristic aspects of her work...Charlotte Brontë, no less than her sister Emily, was a splendidly original artist."    -- Q.D. Leavis

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: New Amer Library Classics
Published date: 1988
Size: 4.25 x 7 inches
Weight: 0.5 pounds

Synopses

A guide to reading "Jane Eyre" with a critical and appreciative mind. Includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.

Other Editions

• Paperback Reprint - Penguin USA (1988) - from $1.00
• Reinforced Hardcover - Spotlight (2005) - from $15.79
• Hardcover - Modern Pub (2004) - from $1.00

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