Bronte

It was on this day in 1847 that Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was published (some sources say October 16) (books by this author). The public reception was divided. William Thackeray, who wrote Vanity Fair, called it "the masterwork of a great genius." One reviewer said: "This is not merely a work of great promise; it is one of absolute performance. It is one of the most powerful domestic romances which have been published for many years."

But not everyone liked the novel. A lot of reviews were focused on trying to figure out who had written Jane Eyre, and especially whether the author was a man or a woman. Charlotte Brontë had published the book under the androgynous pseudonym Currer Bell, the same one she had used a year earlier when she published poems by her and her sisters, Emily and Anne. She changed Charlotte to Currer Bell, Emily to Ellis Bell, and Anne to Acton Bell.

Charlotte decided to publish the poems after she accidentally found some poems that Emily had written, and the three sisters realized that they had all been writing poems secretly for years. When she published Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in 1846, only two copies sold. But she submitted Jane Eyre for publication the next year. It was rejected five times, and then she sent it to Smith, Elder, and Co., her eventual publishers. She sent it with a note that said: It is better in future to address Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Brontë, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, as there is a risk of letters otherwise directed not reaching me at present.

They agreed to publish it, and it became a huge success, although a controversial one. Many reviewers were shocked at the possibility that a woman could write it. They thought Jane was too independent, too coarse, and too interested in what one reviewer called "the grosser and more animal portion of our nature."

Jane Eyre is the story of a plucky orphan who becomes a governess for Mr. Rochester. When Charlotte was five years old, her mother died, and she was sent along with Emily and their two older sisters to a miserable boarding school. The conditions were awful, the teachers were harsh, and Charlotte's two older sisters died from illnesses there. When she wrote Jane Eyre, Charlotte used that school as a model for the one Jane attended.