Charlotte Brontë
Spine number 01
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
The sisters’ shared volume brings dramatic speakers and imagined scenes together with reflections on faith, memory and loss. Charlotte’s contributions, credited to Currer Bell, include the narrative poem Pilate’s Wife’s Dream and the reflective Life. Published at the sisters’ expense in 1846, this entry covers the whole collection; its combination of invented voices and reflective verse accounts for its mixed classification.
1846 · collection · Fiction & non-fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 02
Jane Eyre
An orphan raised among people who resent her dependence, Jane Eyre seeks a living as governess at Thornfield Hall. Her growing attachment to its master, Mr Rochester, brings questions of equality and conscience into a household full of unexplained disturbances. Published in 1847 as the work of Currer Bell, the novel combines a life told from within with romance and Gothic suspense.
1847 · book · Fiction
Spine number 03
Shirley
In a Yorkshire manufacturing district troubled by war and resistance to new machinery, Caroline Helstone and the independent heiress Shirley Keeldar face different limits on what women may do with their lives. Their friendship develops alongside the struggles of mill owner Robert Moore and the workers whose livelihoods are at stake. Published in 1849, the novel sets private hopes within the industrial conflicts of the early nineteenth century.
1849 · book · Fiction
Spine number 04
Villette
With few resources and little companionship, Lucy Snowe leaves England and finds work in a girls’ school in the continental city of Villette. She watches the people around her closely, but her own loneliness and desires emerge through an account full of reserve and sudden intensity. Published in 1853, Brontë’s last novel issued during her lifetime draws on her experience in Brussels.
1853 · book · Fiction
Spine number 05
The Professor
William Crimsworth leaves an unhappy working life in England to seek independence as a teacher in Brussels. Through his account of classrooms, colleagues and courtship, the novel examines how money and authority enter apparently private relationships. Brontë completed this novel before Jane Eyre, but repeated rejections kept it unpublished until 1857, two years after her death.
1857 · book · Fiction · Posthumous
Spine number 06
Emma
The arrival of an apparently wealthy pupil promises to improve the fortunes of a small girls’ school. Around the child, Brontë begins a story of social ambition, watchfulness and uncertain identity, leaving its questions unresolved. The surviving opening of this unfinished novel appeared in the Cornhill Magazine in April 1860, with an introduction by William Makepeace Thackeray.
1860 · book · Fiction · Unfinished · Posthumous
Begin with Jane Eyre for Brontë’s direct, searching narrative voice, or approach her through social fiction and verse before turning to the more guarded storytelling of Villette.
Where to begin
Start here
Jane Eyre
Jane’s direct address makes this an inviting introduction to Brontë’s interest in dignity, dependence and the demands of love. The movement from childhood into adult choices gives the story a clear thread through its shifts between domestic detail and Gothic suspense.
Not yet in our collection
For friendship and social history
Shirley
Choose this for a wider view of a community, with women’s friendship set alongside the competing claims of employers and workers. Its movement among characters and its historical setting offer a different pace from Jane Eyre’s concentrated personal voice.
Not yet in our collection
For shorter reading sessions
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
Read Charlotte’s contributions under the name Currer Bell to meet her dramatic voices and reflections in verse. Begin with Life, then try the longer Pilate’s Wife’s Dream; the shared volume also offers a chance to compare the three sisters’ approaches.
Not yet in our collection
Read next
Villette
Turn here when you are ready for a narrator who makes you work to understand what she chooses to reveal. Lucy’s watchfulness, omissions and changes of tone reward patient reading, especially after the more open address of Jane Eyre.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
collection · Collaboration
The sisters’ shared volume brings dramatic speakers and imagined scenes together with reflections on faith, memory and loss. Charlotte’s contributions, credited to Currer Bell, include the narrative poem Pilate’s Wife’s Dream and the reflective Life. Published at the sisters’ expense in 1846, this entry covers the whole collection; its combination of invented voices and reflective verse accounts for its mixed classification.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1847
Jane Eyre
book
An orphan raised among people who resent her dependence, Jane Eyre seeks a living as governess at Thornfield Hall. Her growing attachment to its master, Mr Rochester, brings questions of equality and conscience into a household full of unexplained disturbances. Published in 1847 as the work of Currer Bell, the novel combines a life told from within with romance and Gothic suspense.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1849
Shirley
book
In a Yorkshire manufacturing district troubled by war and resistance to new machinery, Caroline Helstone and the independent heiress Shirley Keeldar face different limits on what women may do with their lives. Their friendship develops alongside the struggles of mill owner Robert Moore and the workers whose livelihoods are at stake. Published in 1849, the novel sets private hopes within the industrial conflicts of the early nineteenth century.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1853
Villette
book
With few resources and little companionship, Lucy Snowe leaves England and finds work in a girls’ school in the continental city of Villette. She watches the people around her closely, but her own loneliness and desires emerge through an account full of reserve and sudden intensity. Published in 1853, Brontë’s last novel issued during her lifetime draws on her experience in Brussels.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1857
The Professor
book · Posthumous
William Crimsworth leaves an unhappy working life in England to seek independence as a teacher in Brussels. Through his account of classrooms, colleagues and courtship, the novel examines how money and authority enter apparently private relationships. Brontë completed this novel before Jane Eyre, but repeated rejections kept it unpublished until 1857, two years after her death.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1860
Emma
book · Unfinished · Posthumous
The arrival of an apparently wealthy pupil promises to improve the fortunes of a small girls’ school. Around the child, Brontë begins a story of social ambition, watchfulness and uncertain identity, leaving its questions unresolved. The surviving opening of this unfinished novel appeared in the Cornhill Magazine in April 1860, with an introduction by William Makepeace Thackeray.
Not yet in our collection
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet whose fiction explores the desire for love, useful work and independence within a society shaped by class and unequal opportunities. In Jane Eyre (1847), an orphaned governess tells her own story with an insistence on her right to judge and choose. Brontë combines close attention to ordinary employment and social rank with Gothic suspense and intense first-person voices.
Born at Thornton in Yorkshire on 21 April 1816, she grew up at Haworth Parsonage and wrote stories from childhood. Her work as a teacher and governess, and her time studying and teaching in Brussels, supplied material for her fiction. In 1846 she joined her sisters Emily and Anne in publishing Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, adopting the name Currer Bell. She also used it for her novels.
Shirley (1849) places women’s ambitions and friendships amid industrial conflict in Yorkshire, while Villette (1853) follows an English teacher’s guarded account of life abroad. Brontë died at Haworth on 31 March 1855. Her first completed novel, The Professor, had been rejected by publishers and appeared posthumously in 1857.