Charlotte Bronte

Her father’s curate Arthur Bell Nicholls had been in love with Charlotte for a long time and had proposed marriage. Her father was initially opposed to the match but eventually agreed. The couple got married in 1854.

She began to suffer from health problems when she became pregnant with her first child. Both the mother and her unborn child died on 31 March 1855.

She was the third of six children born to Maria Branwell and Patrick Bronte. Her father was an Anglican clergyman who was appointed Perpetual curate of St. Michael and All Angels Church.

Her mother died of cancer in 1821 leaving behind six children. An aunt, Elizabeth took care of the family after her mother’s death.

She along with her sisters was sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. The poor conditions at the school made the girls sick and resulted in the deaths of two of her sisters. Her father removed his surviving daughters from the school.

The surviving Bronte children were a close knit unit who created their own fictional literary world and together wrote stories, articles and poems. The whole Bronte clan had a deep interest in writing and literature.

She wrote her first novella ‘The Green Dwarf’ in 1833 under the pen name Wellesley. She also began working as a teacher at Roe Head from 1835 to 1838.

She found job as a governess in 1839. Over the next couple of years she would work in this position for several families in Yorkshire.

Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels in 1842 to study under the institution of Constantin Heger and his wife Claire Zoe Heger. In return for their services, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music at the school run by the Hegers.

The sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne decided to pursue their writing careers and chose masculine sounding names as their pseudonyms—Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. They published a joint collection of poetry under these names in May 1846.

Charlotte had begun work on a novel called ‘The Professor’. However she could not find a publisher; this novel was ultimately published years later, after her death.

‘Jane Eyre’ is the novel that changed her fortunes and revolutionized the art of fiction. The novel combined elements of social criticism and accepted norms of morality. She explored issues like sexuality, feminism and classism—issues that were regarded much ahead of her time.