Charlotte Brontë

Writer

Charlotte is the author of Jane Eyre and a member of the remarkable Brontë family. The sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne first published their poetry under pseudonyms: Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell was released in 1846, selling only a few copies. Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre was published in 1847, shortly after Emily's Wuthering Heights; the sisters had almost simultaneously written what later became known as two of the great novels of English literature. Jane Eyre was an immediate success and Charlotte went on to publish Shirley (1848) and Villette (1853). She outlived her sisters but still was only 38 when she died in pregnancy.

Extra credit: Charlotte was the only one of the sisters to marry... Her novel The Professor was written before Jane Eyre but not published until 1857... As children the three sisters and their brother Branwell dreamed up and wrote intricate histories of the fantasy kingdoms of Angria and Gondal; Legends of Angria, a collection of Charlotte's childhood writings, was published in 1933.

Other 18th-century authors: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson and Fedor Dostoevsky.