Charlotte Brontë

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Standard Name: Brontë, Charlotte
Birth Name: Charlotte Brontë
Married Name: Mrs Arthur Bell Nicholls
Pseudonym: Currer Bell
Used Form: Charlotte Bronte
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.
Etching of Charlotte Brontë after a portrait by George Richmond, 1850. She is seen from the waist up, seated, with one elbow resting on a table, that hand holding a small book and the other on her lap, holding a handkerchief. She wears a flat ribbon round her neck, and a dark dress, buttoned in front, with lace trim on the sleeves and bodice. Her dark, smooth hair is pulled back and tied with a dark ribbon.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Phyllis Bentley
PB published her first of five critical texts about the lives and works of the threeBrontësisters , The Brontës.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
TLS Archive (19 July 1947): 362
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Johnson, George M., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 191. Gale Research.
27
Literary responses Matilda Betham-Edwards
Geraldine Jewsbury , reviewing this book for the Athenæum early the next year, was not exactly encouraging. She guessed the author's gender correctly, and judged the novel a pale imitation of Charlotte Brontë 's Jane...
Literary responses Matilda Betham-Edwards
The Athenæum review by Lena Eden professed itself disgusted not so much by Dr Jacob's hypocritical and despicable character as by his gall in presuming to set himself up as a hero at an age...
Textual Production Matilda Betham-Edwards
Helen Black questioned her closely about her preferences in literature, and learned that Betham-Edwards endeavour[ed] to appreciate all the living novelists, but found the school of Tolstoy , Ibsen , and Zolarepulsive in the...
Education Malorie Blackman
MB was shaped by her reading outside school. She never entered a bookshop until she was fourteen, but relied on libraries. Early favourites were C. S. Lewis 's Narnia books, Johanna Spyri 's Heidi books...
Literary responses Marjorie Bowen
Although MB was commended for the accuracy of her historical settings in her crime novels, Mary Jean deMarr points out that she was also faulted for unbelievable reversals and obstrusive symbolism. However, deMarr finds her...
Textual Production Caroline Bowles
Southey had proposed the project in 1823. Bowles had great difficulty mastering its stanza form, which was based on that of his early poem Thalaba the Destroyer, 1801. There is little doubt he expressed...
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Bridge
At about twelve Mary Anne Sanders (later AB ) was meeting eminent scholars at dinner, because her businessman father, who had to leave the house early in the morning, insisted against convention on even his...
Family and Intimate relationships Vera Brittain
VB named her daughter after Charlotte Brontë 's character. The child Shirley Catlin was already a Roman Catholic , a role she later combined with that of social democrat. She came second to Elizabeth Taylor
Textual Production Anne Brontë
Charlotte , Emily , and Anne published a collection, Poems, under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Bell was the middle name of their father's curate.
Gérin, Winifred. Emily Brontë: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
185
They received their first copies on...
Education Emily Brontë
A plan was formed that the sisters would open their own school to support themselves, and Charlotte decided that she and Emily needed further education in order to distinguish themselves from their competitors. On 8...
Literary responses Anne Brontë
On 4 July 1846 two anonymous reviews of Poems by Currer , Ellis and Acton Bell appeared, one mildly positive by Sydney Dobell in the Athenæum, and one enthusiastic in the Critic. A...
Reception Emily Brontë
Not until after a larger selection of poems, heavily edited by Charlotte , was included along with the biographical preface in the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights, did EB 's poetry begin to receive...
Reception Anne Brontë
An anonymous reviewer of Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights in The Spectator for 18 December 1847 commented that the work of all three Charlotte BrontëEmily BrontëBrontë s suffered from injudicious selection of the theme and matter.
Allott, Miriam, editor. The Brontës. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
218
Textual Production Emily Brontë
A letter from her publisher Newby in February 1848 suggests that EB had consulted him about the publication of another novel, then in progress. At the end of the year, he announced that another work...

Timeline

1917: John Murray (publishers of Isabella Bird...

Writing climate item

1917

John Murray (publishers of Isabella Bird and later Freya Stark ) took over Smith, Elder (publishers of Charlotte Brontë , Charlotte Chanter , and Queen Victoria ).

July 1923: Beatrice Kean Seymour's novel The Hopeful...

Women writers item

July 1923

Beatrice Kean Seymour 's novelThe Hopeful Journey set out to show how Charlotte Brontë 's novels influence a young woman's marriage.

1951: Beatrice Kean Seymour published The Second...

Women writers item

1951

Beatrice Kean Seymour published The Second Mrs. Conford, which carries resonances with Brontë 's Jane Eyre.

1977: Elaine Showalter published A Literature of...

Writing climate item

1977

Elaine Showalter published A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing, an important work in women's literary history.

10 September 2003: Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of...

Writing climate item

10 September 2003

Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of the Week a website entitled Poetry Landmarks of Britain: a map of poetic assocations plotted on an interactive map of Britain, searchable by region or category.

Summer 2005: News broke that one of the bestselling nonfiction...

Women writers item

Summer 2005

News broke that one of the bestselling nonfiction books of the year, Judith Kelly 's Rock Me Gently, included passages almost verbally identical with passages by other authors.

Texts

No bibliographical results available.