With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue

The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations. The novel is set in a period of social and political ferment, featuring class disenfranchisement, the drama of Luddite machine-breaking, and the divisive effects of the Napoleonic Wars.

But Charlotte Brontes particular...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue, Department of English, Canterbury Christ Church University College.

Based on Charlotte Bronte's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels, Villette is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude.

Rising above the frustrations of confinement within a rigid social order, it is also the story of a woman's right to love and be loved.

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue.

The Professor is Charlotte Brontes first novel, in which she audaciously inhabits the voice and consciousness of a man, William Crimsworth. Like Jane Eyre he is parentless; like Lucy Snowe in Villette he leaves the certainties of England to forge a life in Brussels. But as a man, William has freedom of action, and as a writer Bronte is correspondingly liberated, exploring the relationship between power and sexual desire.

William's first person narration reveals his attraction to...

A story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art.

Orphaned Jane Eyre endures an unhappy childhood, hated by her aunt and cousins and then sent to comfortless Lowood School. But life improves and Jane stays on as a teacher, though she still longs for love and friendship.

A novel of high romance and great intensity, Jane Eyre has enjoyed popular success and critical acclaim ever since its first publication in 1847. Jane's journey from a troubled childhood to independence - and her turbulent love affair with the enigmatic Mr Rochester - electrified Victorian readers with its narrative power.

With characters that are as unforgettable as the story they enact, and a striking use of language that amazed the readers of the day, Jane Eyre ranks among the most influential English novels ever written.

As an orphan, Jane's childhood is full of trouble, but her stubborn independence and sense of self help her to steer through the miseries inflicted by cruel relatives and a brutal school. A position as governess at the Thornfield Hall promises a kind of freedom. But Thornfield is a house full of secrets, its master a passionate, tormented man, and before long Jane faces her greatest struggle in a choice between love and self-respect.

In time for the 200th anniversary of her birth, a Penguin Hardcover Classics edition of the book many believe to be Charlotte Bronte's crowning achievement
With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster, and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!' Meek, measured, but determined, Jane Eyre is a child born into unfortunate circumstances. Orphaned, mistreated by her cruel aunt and eventually sent away to boarding school, it is not until she becomes a...

Charlotte Bronte's novel tells the life story of the eponymous Jane, an orphan who excels at school, yet suffers several injustices on her path to independence.Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colorful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes theme discussions and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom and at home to further engage the reader in the story.The Classics Illustrated comic book series began in 1941 with its first issue, Alexandre Dumas "The Three Musketeers," and has since included over...