Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, the third daughter of
the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his wife Maria. Her brother Patrick
Branwell was born in 1817, and her sisters Emily and Anne in 1818 and
1820. In 1820, too, the Brontë family moved to Haworth, Mrs. Brontë
dying the following year.
In 1824 the four eldest Brontë daughters were enrolled as pupils at
the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge. The following year Maria
and Elizabeth, the two eldest daughters, became ill, left the school
and died: Charlotte and Emily, understandably, were brought home.
In 1826 Mr. Brontë brought home a box of wooden soldiers for
Branwell to play with. Charlotte, Emily, Branwell, and Ann, playing
with the soldiers, conceived of and began to write in great detail
about an imaginary world which they called Angria.
In 1831 Charlotte became a pupil at the school at Roe Head,
but she left school the following year to teach her sisters at home.
She returned returns to Roe Head School in 1835 as a governess: for a
time her sister Emily attended the same school as a pupil, but became
homesick and returned to Haworth. Ann took her place from 1836 to 1837.
In 1838, Charlotte left Roe Head School. In 1839 she accepted a
position as governess in the Sidgewick family, but left after three
months and returned to Haworth. In 1841 she became governess in the
White family, but left, once again, after nine months.
Upon her return to Haworth the three sisters, led by Charlotte,
decided to open their own school after the necessary preparations had
been completed. In 1842 Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels to
complete their studies. After a trip home to Haworth, Charlotte
returned alone to Brussels, where she remained until 1844.
Upon her return home the sisters embarked upon their project for
founding a school, which proved to be an abject failure: their
advertisements did not elicit a single response from the public. The
following year Charlotte discovered Emily's poems, and decided to
publish a selection of the poems of all three sisters: 1846 brought the
publication of their Poems, written under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Charlotte also completed The Professor, which was rejected for publication. The following year, however, Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Ann's Agnes Grey were all published, still under the Bell pseudonyms.
In 1848 Charlotte and Ann visited their publishers in London, and
revealed the true identities of the "Bells." In the same year Branwell
Brontë, by now an alcoholic and a drug addict, died, and Emily died
shortly thereafter. Ann died the following year.
In 1849 Charlotte, visiting London, began to move in literary
circles, making the acquaintance, for example, of Thackeray. In 1850
Charlotte edited her sister's various works, and met Mrs. Gaskell. In
1851she visited the Great Exhibition in London, and attended a series
of lectures given by Thackeray.
The Rev. A. B. Nicholls, curate of Haworth since 1845, proposed
marriage to Charlotte in 1852. The Rev. Mr. Brontë objected violently,
and Charlotte, who, though she may have pitied him, was in any case not
in love with him, refused him. Nicholls left Haworth in the following
year, the same in which Charlotte's Villette
was published. By 1854, however, Mr. Brontë's opposition to the
proposed marriage had weakened, and Charlotte and Nicholls became
engaged. Nicholls returned as curate at Haworth, and they were married,
though it seems clear that Charlotte, though she admired him, still did
not love him.
In 1854 Charlotte, expecting a child, caught pneumonia. It was an
illness which could have been cured, but she seems to have seized upon
it (consciously or unconsciously) as an opportunity of ending her life,
and after a lengthy and painful illness, she died, probably of
dehydration.
1857 saw the postumous publication of The Professor, which had been written in 1845-46, and in that same year Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë was published.
