Birth: April 21, 1816, Thornton Parish, Great Britain
Death: March 31, 1855, Haworth, Yorkshire, Great Britain - in Pregnancy
Early Influences:
- Father was Irish and held a Cambridge Degree
- Father raised himself from poverty to ordination in the Church of England
- Both parents were writers and had a strong belief in education and literary ambition
- Grew up in a moorland area which became important in later books
- Mother died in 1821
- Fell in love with the married school administrator and future employer at the school in Brussels where she studied languages
Education:
- Clergy Daughters' School (boarding school) at Cowan Bridge which became important as the model for the school in Jane Eyre
- One sister died while at the boarding school
- Charlotte and her sisters Emily and Anne taught themselves after being removed from the Boarding School
- Studied foreign languages in Brussels in 1842 as preparation for opening her own school, a dream never realized
Major Accomplishments:
- Published Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell with her sisters in 1846
- Wrote Jane Eyre in 1847 from which she became immediately famous
- Published Villette in 1853
Significance:
- Guided her sisters in their literary careers
- Ahead of her time in the area of realism
- Seen as a social and emotional rebel according to the critics of her time
- Realized through her writings modern womanhood with all of its intricacies including a need for independence along with a need for love
Contemporaries:
- Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States
- William Wordsworth - British Poet
- Richard Wagner - German Composer
