Jane Eyre was published in 1847 under the androgynous pseudonym of “Currer Bell.” The publication was followed by widespread success. Utilizing two literary traditions, the Bildungsroman and the Gothic novel, Jane Eyre is a powerful narrative with profound themes concerning genders, family, passion, and identity. It is unambiguously one of the most celebrated novels in British literature.

Born in 1816, Charlotte Bronte was the third daughter of Patrick Bronte, an ambitious and intelligent clergyman. According to Newsman, all the Bronte children were unusually precocious and almost ferociously intelligent, and their informal and unorthodox educations under their father's tutelage nurtured these traits. Patrick Bronte shared his interests in literature with his children, toward whom he behaved as though they were his intellectual equals. The Bronte children read voraciously. Charlotte's imagination was especially fired by the poetry of Byron, whose brooding heroes served as the prototypes for characters in the Bronte's juvenile writings as well as for such figures as Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre (2). Bronte's formal education was limited and sporadic – ten months at the age of 8 at Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters' School (the model for Lowood Institution in Jane Eyre), eighteen months from the age of 14 at Roe Head School of Miss Margaret Wooler (the model for Ms. Temple) (Nestor 3-4). According to Newman, Bronte then worked as a teacher at Roe Head for three years before going to work as a governess. Seeking an alternative way of earning money, Charlotte Bronte went to Brussels in 1842 to study French and German at the Pensionnat Heger, preparing herself to open a school at the parsonage. She seems to have fallen in love with her charismatic teacher, Constantin Heger. The experience seems on a probable source for a recurrent feature in Bronte's fiction: “relationships in which the inflammatory spark of intellectual energy ignites an erotic attraction between a woman and a more socially powerful man” (Newman 6). The Brontes' efforts to establish a school at the parsonage never got off the ground. Still seeking ways to make money, Charlotte published, with her sisters, the unsuccessful Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Her first effort to publish a novel, The Professor, was also unsuccessful. Jane Eyre, published in October 1847, however, was met with great enthusiasm and became one of the best sellers. As “Currer Bell” Bronte completed two more novels, Shirley and Villette. She married Reverend William Bell Nicholls in 1854 and died nine months later, at the age of thirty-nine in 1855 (Nestor 4-5).

The story of Jane Eyre takes place in northern England in the early to mid-19th Century. （“Jane Eyre” 151） It starts as the ten-year-old Jane, a plain but unyielding child, is excluded by her Aunt Reed from the domestic circle around the hearth and bullied by her handsome but unpleasant cousins. Under the suggestion of Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary that sympathizes Jane, Mrs. Reed sends Jane to Lowood Institution operated by a hypocritical Evangelicalist, Mr. Brocklehurst, who chastises Jane in front of the class and calls her a liar. At Lowood, Jane befriends with Helen Burns, who helps the newly arrived Jane adjust to the austere environment; she is also taken under the wing of the superintendent, Miss Temple. One spring, many students catch typhus due to the harsh condition. Helen dies of consumption. At the end of her studies Jane is retained as a teacher. When Jane grows weary of her life at Lowood, she advertises for a position as governess and is engaged by Mrs. Fairfax, housekeeper at Thronfield, for a little girl, Adele Varens. After much waiting, Jane meets her employer, Edward Rochester, somber, moody, quick to change in his manner, and brusque in his speech. Mysterious happenings occur at Thronfield, including demonic laugh emanating from the third-story attic and a fire set in Rochester's bedroom one night. Rochester attributes all the oddities to Grace Poole, the seamstress. Meanwhile, Jane develops an attraction for Rochester. Rochester, however, often flirts with the idea of marrying Miss Ingram. An old acquaintance of Rochester's, Richard Mason, visits Thornfield and is severely injured from an attack apparently from Grace. Jane returns to Gateshead for a while to see the dying Mrs. Reed. When she returns to Thornfield, Rochester asks Jane to marry him. Jane accepts, but during the wedding, Mason and a solicitor interrupt the ceremony by revealing that Rochester is keeping his lunatic wife, Bertha Mason, in the attic in Thornfield. Despite Rochester's confession, Jane leaves Thornfield. She arrives at the desolate crossroads of Whitcross and runs into the Rivers siblings, who tend her in Moor House. Jane happily accepts the offer of teaching at St. John's school.