Charlotte Brontë's London, And Why She Wasn't A Fan.

 Euston Arch in 1896, image via Wikimedia Commons.

Charlotte Brontë's first visit to London was in July 1848. Along with her sister Anne, Charlotte came down to meet her publisher George Smith of Smith Elder & Co, to disprove rumours that the Bell authors (the pseudonym the sisters were using) were in fact one person. They travelled by overnight train, arriving at Euston station early in the morning.

Euston would have been Charlotte's gateway to London; she passed through the Victorian railway hub each time she arrived in the capital, and each time she escaped back to the quiet of Haworth.
It's nice to note that the first WH Smith bookstall at a train station opened in the same year — November 1848 — perhaps Charlotte would have perused the books on offer when she visited.
Read more and see more beautiful photographs on  londonist/charlotte-brontes-london and  kateshrewsday