JANE EYRE

Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Writing for the Penguin edition, Stevie Davies describes it as an "influential feminist text" because of its in-depth exploration of a strong female character's feelings.

Primarily of the bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of eponymous      Jane Eyre, her growth to adulthood, and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of Thornfield Hall. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel's exploration of sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism.

There is something more going on in Jane Eyre than mere charm, true, something authentically powerful--if, as will be see, brief. But the power of Jane Eyre has less to do with the conflict of great forces that typifies great works of literature, and more to do with the subtle irritation of a delayed resolution to its most important episode. Instead of a race between values through the people who represent those values, Jane Eyre tasks us with a race to turn its pages and find out its secrets--still a race, but a race whose victory, barring the boredom of the reader, is assured.