Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte's masterpice tells one of the greatest love stories in English literature. Achieving immediate success on publication in 1847, it continues to enthrall generation after generation. Jane, a penniless orphan, is sent away to a charity school by her unfeeling aunt, where she suffers great hardship. At eighteen, driven by a desire to broaden her horizons, she takes up a position as Governess at Thornfield Hall. There she meets one of the darkest romantic heroes of all time--Mr. Rochester. Powerful and intensely emotional, Jane Eyre is a novel to haunt the imagination. Award-winning reader Juliet Stevenson perfectly evokes the defiant spirit of its heroine in this BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour reading. Charlotte Bronte was born in 1819. She was educated at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, and the harsh conditions there were the basis for Lowood School in Jane Ayre. She also published her work under the pseudonym of Currer Bell, but the literary world was well aware of her true identity and she achieved considerable acclaim in her own lifetime. She died in 1855.