Poems by Currer Bell (1846)
Jane Eyre (1847)
Shirley (1849)
Villette (1853)
The Professor (1857)
When Bronte was twenty-years-old, she wrote to Robert Southey, the poet laureate, for his opinion about women writers. His response devastated the budding author: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation." Undaunted, Bronte continued to write, but chose the pseudonym Currer Bell when she began to publish.
When Bronte was twenty-years-old, she wrote to Robert Southey, the poet laureate, for his opinion about women writers. His response devastated the budding author: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation." Undaunted, Bronte continued to write, but chose the pseudonym Currer Bell when she began to publish.
In 1847, Jane Eyre by Currer Bell became a bestseller. Although gossip abounded as to whether the author was a male or female, this speculation only fueled the book's popularity among readers. Only after the revelation of Bell's true identity did the negative criticism's increase, as stalwarts in the Victorian Society were shocked that a woman would dare write with such passion and sexual awareness.
The Atlas, a weekly newspaper of politics, commerce and literature published in New South Wales, praised the book in its 1847 review:
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. It has little or nothing of the old conventional stamp upon it ... but it is full of youthful vigour, of freshness and originality, of nervous diction and concentrated interest. The incidents are sometimes melo-dramatic, and, it might be added, improbable; but these incidents, though striking, are subordinate to the main purpose of the piece, which is a tale of passion, not of intensity which is most sublime. It is a book to make the pulses gallop and the heart beat, and to fill the eyes with tears.
A Catholic periodical in England by the name of The Rambler was started to provide a medium for the expression of independent opinion on subjects of the day. It featured this scathing review in 1848:
Jane Eyre is, indeed, one of the coarsest books which we ever perused. It is not that the professed sentiments of the writer are absolutely wrong or forbidding, or that the odd sort of religious notions which she puts forth are much worse than is usual in popular tales. It is rather that there is a tendency to relapse into that class of ideas, expressions, and circumstances, which is most connected with the grosser and more animal portion of our nature; and that the detestable morality of the most prominent character in the story is accompanied with every sort of palliation short of unblushing justification.
Eliza Rigby was even more damning. In writing for the immensely popular Quarterly Review in 1847, the classic British political and cultural magazine, Rigby considered Bronte's work to be detrimental to society and Christian morals.
Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of the unregenerate and undisciplined spirit, the more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests. It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her.
Altogether the autobiography of Jane Eyre is preeminently an anti-Christian composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the comforts of the rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as far as each individual is concerned, is a murmuring against God's appointment--there is a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of man, for which we find no authority either in God's word or in God's providence--there is that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which is at once the most prominent and the most subtle evil which the law and the pulpit, which all civilized society in fact, has at the present day to contend with.
We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home is the same which has also written Jane Eyre.
167 years have passed since those reviews, and the roles and perceptions of women have definitely changed. Still, Jane Eyre has weathered the storms through diverse cultures and generations to remain a beloved favorite. Bronte's heroine--a dowdy, but determined woman who set her own standards and kept them regardless of the consequences--speaks past the barriers of time and social norms to inspire women to be themselves.
Jane Eyre invites women today (just as she did in repressive Victorian England), to step outside their current restraints--even if at first, it can only be done internally. She beckons women to risk loving and being loved, to celebrate their strength and intellect. She dares us to choose the intangibles over fading beauty and wealth; but most of all, she dares us to value ourselves.
Bronte would not have to cloak her passions for life and love behind a pseudonym or a character in a novel if she were writing today. Yet, even under Victorian repressions, she gracefully, unwittingly formed a bridge for other writers to follow. The shy, small, and unassuming woman from Haworth left a giant, indelible legacy on us all.