Brontë, Charlotte (1816–1855)

English author. Name variations: Charlotte Bronte; Charlotte Brontë Nichols; Mrs. ArthurNichols; (pseudonym) Currer Bell. Born Charlotte Brontë at Thornton in Yorkshire, April 21, 1816; died at Haworth in Yorkshire, Mar 31, 1855; dau. of Maria Branwell Brontë and Reverend Patrick Brontë (Methodist cleric-author); m. Arthur B. Nichols (curate), June 29, 1854, at age 38.

Author of Jane Eyre and elder sister to writers Emily and Anne Brontë, whose creative and passionate nature remained locked in perpetual combat with the moral strictures that governed the famous Victorian "cult of womanhood"; lost her mother and 2 older sisters to childbirth complications and consumption by age 8; moved to Haworth (1821); briefly attended Cowan Bridge School, which formed the basis for the austere and unhealthy Lowood of Jane Eyre; at 15, began a year of study at Roe Head, which provided governess training for young women (1831); taught 3 years at Roe Head, followed by a period of physical and mental recovery at Haworth before she assumed the duties of a nursery governess (1839); with Emily, enrolled at the Pensionnat de Demoiselles, run by the Heger family in Brussels; saw publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846); following publication of Jane Eyre (1847), was transformed into a cause celèbre, even though her identity remained ambiguous and her unconventional novel and heroine had inspired considerable controversy; by age 33, saw 2 younger sisters and only brother die within months of each other; married late in life and died within 9 months, from illness associated with pregnancy and, most likely, consumption; other writings include Shirley, A Tale (1849), Villette (1853), The Professor, A Tale (1857), in which she critiqued social hypocrisy and the limitations faced by women and the working class, Legends of Angria (1933), The Twelve Adventurers and Other Stories (1925) and Five Novelettes (1971); a literary giant, her reputation has eclipsed that of her younger sisters, owing to her prodigious literary production.

See also Margaret Howard Blom, Charlotte Brontë (Twayne, 1977); Penny Boumelha, Charlotte Brontë (Indiana U. Press, 1990); Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë (Penguin, 1975); Ernest Dimnet, The Brontë Sisters (trans. by Louise Morgan Sill, Harcourt, 1928); Rebecca Fraser, The Brontës (Fawcett, 1988); Janet Barker, The Brontës (St. Martin, 1995); and Women in World History.