Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte’s first novel, published under the pen name of Currer Bell. Jane Eyre, orphaned at a very young age, suffers at the hands of her aunt and cousins when her maternal uncle dies. At the age of ten, she is sent to a charity boarding school, where her life is also filled with privation until an outbreak of typhus exposes the austere measures imposed by the manager of the school. At the age of eighteen, she leaves the school to become a governess to Mr Edward Fairfax Rochester’s ward, Adèle. Here, Jane seems to find happiness: beneath Mr Rochester’s moody exterior, there appears to be kindness and perhaps even love? But further events may destroy her chance at happiness. The use of words that seem to be nowadays obsolete, such as: unclose (doors etc); undraw (curtains); undeceive; benignant; show how much can change in a language in a mere 200 years. Described as a classic, it is easy to see why Jane Eyre is one of the most unforgettable of English novels.