Currer,Ellis,

& Acton Bell

The

Brontë

Sisters

Anne, Emily & Charlotte

by their brother

Patrick Branwell Brontë

(National Portrait Gallery)

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Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of

Charlotte Brontë 1816-1855

'I must confess that my first impression of Charlotte Brontë’s personal appearance was that it was interesting rather than attractive. She was very small, and had a quaint old-fashioned look. Her head seemed too large for her body. She had fine eyes, but her face was marred by the shape of the mouth and by the complexion. There was but little feminine charm about her; and of this fact she herself was uneasily and perpetually conscious. It may seem strange that the possession of genius did not lift her above the weakness of an excessive anxiety about her personal appearance. But I believe that she would have given all her genius and her fame to have been beautiful. Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, or more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty.'

George Smith - Smith, Elder & Company

Charlotte’s Publisher

Charlotte Brontë,

by George Richmond

(National Portrait Gallery)

‘Branwell - Emily - Anne are gone like dreams - gone as Maria and Elizabeth went twenty years ago. One by one I have watched them fall asleep in my arms - and closed their glazed eyes . . .’

Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre - published October 1847

‘After breakfast on Sunday morning I took the M.S. of Jane Eyre to my little study, and began to read it. The story quickly took me captive. Before twelve o’clock my horse came to the door, but I could not put the book down. I scribbled two or three lines to my friend, saying I was very sorry that circumstances had arisen to prevent my meeting him, sent the note off by my groom, and went on reading the M.S. Presently the servant came to tell me that luncheon was ready; I asked him to bring me a sandwich and a glass of wine, and still went on with Jane Eyre. Dinner came, for me the meal was a very hasty one, and before I went to bed that night I had finished reading the manuscript.’

George Smith - Smith, Elder & Company

Charlotte’s Publisher

'I wish you had not sent me Jane Eyre. It interested me so much that I have lost . . . a whole day in reading it at the busiest period, with the printers I know waiting for copy. Who the author can be I can’t guess - if a woman she knows her language better than most ladies do, or has had a ‘classical’ education. It is a fine book though . . . the style very generous and upright so to speak . . . Some of the love passages made me cry. . .  there are parts excellent I don’t know why I tell you this but that I have been exceedingly moved & pleased by Jane Eyre. It is a woman writing but who? Give my respects and thanks to the author - whose novel is the first English one . . . that I’ve been able to read for many a day.’

William Makepeace Thackery

writng to Charlottle’s publisher, Smith Elder

‘I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.’

Charlotte Brontë