Charlotte Brontë

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CB 's five novels, with their passionate explorations of the dilemmas facing nineteenth-century middle-class English women, have made her perhaps the most loved, imitated, resisted, and hotly debated novelist of the Victorian period.

Milestones

21 April 1816

Charlotte Brontë , the third daughter in the family, was born in Thornton, near Bradford, in Yorkshire.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
71

By summer 1827

CB had begun creating plays with her siblings: both secret Bed plays produced under the covers with Emily in their shared bed, and daytime plays involving Branwell and Anne as well.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
151

August 1846

CB , while in Manchester for her father's cataract operation, began writing Jane Eyre.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
508

16 October 1847

CB 's novel Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was published in three volumes as edited by Currer Bell .
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
535
Gordon, Lyndall. Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life. Chatto and Windus.
161

7 July 1848

CB travelled to London with her sister Anne to refute the claim that Currer , Ellis , and Acton Bell were a single author.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
557

Early May 1850

CB 's Jane Eyre was re-issued in a cheap, one-volume edition.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
640

Late May 1853

CB began a new story called Willie Ellin, which had elements in common with The Professor; it was never finished.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
731, 734

31 March 1855

CB , Mrs Arthur Bell Nicholls, died at Haworth of a chill, which was called tuberculosis. It is now generally supposed that she died because she was weakened by exceptionally heavy morning sickness in her pregnancy.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
772
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin.
523

Biography

Birth and Background

21 April 1816

Charlotte Brontë , the third daughter in the family, was born in Thornton, near Bradford, in Yorkshire.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
71