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Zusatztext "At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius! the vehemence! the indignation of Charlotte Brontë." --Virginia Woolf Informationen zum Autor Charlotte Brontë was born in Yorkshire in 1816. As a child, she was sent to boarding school, where two of her sisters died; she was subsequently educated at home with her younger siblings, Emily, Branwell and Anne. As an adult, Charlotte worked as a governess and taught in a school in Brussels. Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pen-name Currer Bell, and was followed by Shirley (1848), Villette (1853) and The Professor (posthumously published in 1857). In 1854 Charlotte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died in March of the following year. Klappentext Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte's most enduring masterpiece, the unforgettable tale of an orphan girl's ardent search for a wider and richer life. Originally published in 1847, it was an immediate popular success, but it also caused a storm of controversy. Bronte's firm insistence on the equality of the sexes and her prescient creation of one of literature's most independent heroines shocked many of her contemporaries. This surprisingly modern sensibility, combined with Bronte's magical use of language and her incandescent storytelling, makes the novel particularly rewarding and accessible today. Set in England's lonely moors and peopled with such memorable characters as the brooding Mr. Rochester, passionate yet melancholy, and the keeper of a terrible secret; the hypocritical Mr. Brocklehurst, a dour "black marble clergyman"; Helen Burns, Jane's beloved but doomed young friend; Bertha, the famous madwoman in the attic; and of course, its incomparable heroine, Jane Eyre has rightfully taken its place among our greatest literary works. Chapter One There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it; I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children." "What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked. "Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent." A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase; I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat crosslegged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in ...
