13 October 1843 Charlotte writes to Ellen Nussey from Brussels.

13 October 1843

Charlotte writes to Ellen Nussey from Brussels:

'It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of numbers - sometimes this solitude oppresses me to an excess'. She continues to describe how she was driven to give her notice to Mde Heger, but upon hearing this Mon Heger 'sent for me the day after - and pronounced with vehemence his decision that I should not leave ... so I promised to stay a while longer ... I have much to say Ellen ... which I do not like to trust to a letter, but which one day perhaps or rather one evening - if ever we should find ourselves again by the fireside at Haworth or at Brookroyd with our feet on the fender - curling our hair - I may communicate to you'.

Visit the Manuscript of 'Jane Eyre' in New York.

How did Charlotte Brontë go from scribbling in secret to one of England’s (and literature’s) most famous names? Look for the answer in a passage in Jane Eyre, in which her famously plain heroine tells her husband-to-be that she is a “free human with an independent will.” That bold declaration is at the center of a new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York—one that celebrates the author’s 200th birthday with a look at the forces that turned her into a writer.

Brontë has been at the center of literary legend since her first published novel, Jane Eyre, appeared under a pseudonym in 1847. The book was immediately loved and loathed for emotions that flew in the face of convention and courtesy, and the identity of its author became a much-contested question. But even after Brontë was discovered to be the person behind the pen name Currer Bell, myths about her childhood, her family members and the atmosphere in which she became an author have persisted. Read all the article; smithsonianmag