Jane Eyre
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Description
'The masterwork of a great genius' William Makepeace Thackeray
A novel of intense emotional power, heightened atmosphere and fierce intelligence, Jane Eyre dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom on her own terms. Its heroine Jane endures loneliness and cruelty in the home of her heartless aunt and the cold charity of Lowood School. Her natural independence and spirit prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of a shameful secret forces her to make a terrible choice.
Edited with an Introduction and notes by STEVIE DAVIES
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A novel of intense emotional power, heightened atmosphere and fierce intelligence, Jane Eyre dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom on her own terms. Its heroine Jane endures loneliness and cruelty in the home of her heartless aunt and the cold charity of Lowood School. Her natural independence and spirit prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of a shameful secret forces her to make a terrible choice.
Edited with an Introduction and notes by STEVIE DAVIES
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Penguin Classics
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Product details
- 18+
- Paperback | 624 pages
- 129 x 198 x 26mm | 426g
- 01 Nov 2006
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Penguin Classics
- London, United Kingdom
- English
- Reprint
- 0141441143
- 9780141441146
- 5,464
Review Text
In conjunction with the New York Public Library, Doubleday is proud to introduce a very special collector's series of literary masterpieces. Lavishly illustrated with rare archival material from the library's extensive resources, including the renowned Berg collection, these editions will bring the classics to life for a new generation of readers.
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Review quote
"At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Bronte."
--Virginia Woolf
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--Virginia Woolf
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About Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Bronte (1816-55), sister of Anne Bronte and Emily Bronte. Jane Eyre appeared in 1847 and was followed by Shirley (1848) and Vilette (1853). In 1854 Charlotte Bronte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died during her pregnancy on March 31, 1855 in Haworth, Yorkshire.
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Our customer reviews
It's incredible to think or imagine that, of the two most intense, passionate heroines of 19th century literature, both would be written by sisters of the same family. But this is, indeed, the case. With Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
You are drawn into a first person narrative that, from the start, is compelling and becomes more disturbing and troubling.
Given the 19th century was a deeply moralistic society, at least on the surface, but one within and beneath which women as such had no identity or power beyond certain limited roles (governess, wife, spinster, etc.). But then you have Jane: Many things have been written about the character and the novel. As character, Jane Eyre compels you to understand very specific and certain imperatives (nowadays described as feminist - then, Bronte was alone in imagining it).
She has an integrity embodied by her own ethics and morals; modes of behaviour and thinking that are radically established and challenging of the male-dominated status quo. Jane is effectively a radical heroine not only in 19th century literature, but all literature preceding it.
To me, she is a proto-feminist, to be as much admired in the 21st century and all the more so when considering the society within which this book was published (under a male pseudonym, of course). She is truly herself, coping impressively with difficult, painful circumstances, not giving in to compromise that will threaten her own character or principles; speaking up for herself in situations involving the most appalling challenges, when they most matter; assert her independence of heart and mind; maintaining her integrity and self-respect against the odds.
Jane Eyre as a novel signposted a revolution in terms of fiction writing and, in particular, challenged and questioned traditional attitudes and thinking about women and gave women an independence of voice and thought, and passionate determinism, not previously displayed. The only other novel that is as passionate, and as determined in thinking of the singular female self as Jane Eyre, is Emily Bronte's novel, Wuthering Heights, and her character, Catherine Earnshaw; yet Jane Eyre remains, through her novel, uncompromised of her own integrity and character, despite her circumstances et al. Catherine, according to Emily's narrative, is never given such a choice, or options of such freedom, i.e. independent female thinking.
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is an astonishing novel: besides Wuthering Heights, by her sister Emily, it is one of the most passionate, intense, uncompromising, painful, and beautifully and intensely emotionally sustained novels of all literature. An astonishing achievement, irrespective of genre, author or century.show more
by bobbygw
