I interview Charlotte Brontë

That the author of Jane Eyre died in 1855 is a mere technicality

Welcome to another Literary Ladies Lite Sunday edition. It seems only fair that Charlotte Brontë, author of the beloved novel Jane Eyre and others, all of which will be in print for time immemorial, should have her say in this era of elevating women’s voices.

I'm thrilled to have conducted an interview with Charlotte Brontë; that she’s been deceased since 1855 was no obstacle. Charlotte’s answers to my interview questions have been gleaned verbatim from an autobiographical essay she wrote in 1850, as well as letters written between 1847 and 1850.

Truthfully, her first-person narratives provide incisive answers, needing only someone (that would be me) to ask hypothetical, yet pertinent questions.

The Brontë sisters, in a painting by their brother, Branwell. Charlotte wrote much about their bumpy path to publication.

How did you and your sisters set about to get published?

Charlotte Brontë: We had very early cherished the dream of one day becoming authors. This dream, never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing tasks occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and consistency: it took the character of a resolve.

We agreed to arrange a small section of our poems, and, if possible, get them printed. The book was printed: it is scarcely known...* Ill-success failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued.

We each set to work on a prose tale: Ellis Bell [Emily Brontë] produced Wuthering Heights, Acton Bell [Anne Brontë], Agnes Grey, and Currer Bell [Charlotte herself] also wrote a narrative in one volume. These manuscripts were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an ignominious and abrupt dismissal.

* The Poems of Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell was published and advertised at the sisters’ own expense and sold only two copies.