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Charlotte Brontë was the daughter of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, an Anglo-Irish clergyman who was 'perpetual curate' of Haworth in the north of England. Her father's family had been called Prunty in Ireland, and it seems he changed the spelling in 1802, in imitation of Admiral Lord Nelson's Italian title of Duke of Brontë. Charlotte's mother, Maria Brontë (born Branwell) died when she was a small child, leaving five daughters and a son. Of these, only the four youngest, Charlotte (born 1816), Emily (1818), Anne (1820) and their brother Branwell (1817), lived beyond the age of ten.

The four surviving Brontë children were avid writers, creating imaginary countries. After two boarding schools, Charlotte worked as a teacher at her old school, then as a governess, and then went to the continent to teach English in Brussels.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne encouraged each other to write. In 1846, they produced a collection of their poetry, under the pen names of Acton Bell (Anne), Currer Bell (Charlotte), and Ellis Bell (Emily), but it sold only two copies. Undaunted, they moved on to fiction, and each of them published a first novel in 1847: Emily's (her only one) was Wuthering Heights, Charlotte's was Jane Eyre and Anne's was Agnes Grey. In 1848, their brother Branwell died, and within a few months Emily and Anne had both died of tuberculosis, leaving Charlotte as the last of a family of writers. Seven years later, Charlotte married her father's curate, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, but tragically she died after only nine months, while expecting her first child. As with her sisters, the cause of death given on Charlotte's death certificate was Pthisis (that is, tuberculosis), but there have been doubts about this.

All three sisters wrote books which are still widely read and studied, and Charlotte is seen now as one of the most important of the women writers of the nineteenth century. Her books, with dates of publication are -

Jane Eyre (1847)
Shirley (1849)
Villette (1853)
The Professor (1857)

Of these, Jane Eyre is the story most often dramatized. Charlotte's first three books appeared under the name of 'Currer Bell', apparently because books by women writers were generally less successful at the time. The Professor was written before Jane Eyre and published after Charlotte's death under her real name.

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Charlotte Brontë was the daughter of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, an Anglo-Irish clergyman who was 'perpetual curate' of Haworth in the north of England. Her father's family had been called Prunty in Ireland, and it seems he changed the spelling in 1802, in imitation of Admiral Lord Nelson's Italian title of Duke of Brontë. Charlotte's mother, Maria Brontë (born Branwell) died when she was a small child, leaving five daughters and a son. Of these, only the four youngest, Charlotte (born 1816), Emily (1818), Anne (1820) and their brother Branwell (1817), lived beyond the age of ten.

The four surviving Brontë children were avid writers, creating imaginary countries. After two boarding schools, Charlotte worked as a teacher at her old school, then as a governess, and then went to the continent to teach English in Brussels.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne encouraged each other to write. In 1846, they produced a collection of their poetry, under the pen names of Acton Bell (Anne), Currer Bell (Charlotte), and Ellis Bell (Emily), but it sold only two copies. Undaunted

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