Charlotte Bronte

by Jessica Cox

  The three sisters, while anxious to see their poetic productions in print, were keen to preserve the secret of their authorship, and consequently adopted the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell – which had the advantage of concealing not only their true identities, but their gender as well, something that Charlotte was anxious to do. Writing her biographical notice for a new edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey shortly after the deaths of Emily and Anne, she explained the reasoning behind their choice of pseudonyms:

  [W]e did not like to declare ourselves women, because -without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’ – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.

  Charlotte’s desire to be praised for the quality of her work rather than judged by attitudes towards the woman writer stayed with her throughout her literary career, and she remained anxious to retain the secret of her sex following the publication of her first two novels. Her anxiety was entirely justified. The woman poet, in particular, was frequently distinguished from the figure of the male poet by the title ‘poetess’. Primarily domestic – wifely and maternal – concerns were considered suitable subjects for the woman poet. While the poetess who adhered to these conventions might achieve moderate success and recognition for her literary endeavours, she was unlikely to be classed alongside her male counterparts. The image of the woman poet as poetess diffused the threat she posed to both the male poet and the patriarchal structures of Victorian society, for it essentially ensured she remained in the feminine realm, even as she entered the public world of writing and publishing. The gender-ambiguous pseudonyms selected by the three sisters were thus useful tools.

  The sisters’ collection of poetry, simply entitled Poems, was published in May 1846 under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell – ranked, thus, in order of the sisters’ ages. It was largely ignored by critics, though a few short reviews appeared in the magazines of the day. The anonymous reviewer in The Critic praised the work excessively, declaring:

  Amid the heaps of trash and trumpery in the shape of verses, which lumber the table of the literary journalist, this small book […] has come like a ray of sunshine, gladdening the eye with present glory […] Here we have […] original thoughts, expressed in the true language of poetry

  The Athenaeum was more qualified in its praise, suggesting that the three poets were of differing quality, citing Ellis as the most talented of the three, Acton as the weakest, and Currer as occupying the middle ground between these two. Though she was anxious for her sisters’ as well as her own success, such a judgment may well have pained Charlotte. She had long harboured poetic aspirations, and the publication of the collection was largely due to her own exertions in persuading her sisters to agree to the project. To have her own work disparaged, albeit only slightly, in comparison with her younger sister’s must surely have rankled somewhat. Nevertheless, in her discussion of the small volume of poetry in her biographical note for Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, the critics’ view of the work seems to coincide with her own: ‘all of it that merits to be known’, she wrote, ‘are the poems of Ellis Bell.’ Subsequent critical assessment of the Brontë sisters’ poetry has tended to agree with this view. It is significant, however, that the biographical note was written by Charlotte Brontë, the novelist, who had long since accepted that her literary success would not come in the form of poetry, and who had perhaps accepted her younger sister’s greater poetic talent.

  Though the volume received little attention in the press, the pseudonyms nevertheless sparked interest among those who did review the book as to the true identities of the poets – despite the fact that pseudonymous and anonymous publication was relatively common practice at the time. The Athenaeum assumed the collection to be the work of three brothers – an assumption that would no doubt have pleased Charlotte. WA. Butler, writing in Dublin University Magazine, also seems to have taken it for granted that the poems were male-authored, though speculates that they may be the work of ‘but one master spirit’. Such speculation was to continue for some time to come, particularly following the publication of the sisters’ first novels. It was to prove particularly frustrating for Charlotte, who sought both to protect the identity of her sex, and to establish her work independently from that of her sisters.

  Despite one or two positive reviews, the first edition of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (a print run of one thousand) had sold only two copies a year after its first appearance. Nevertheless, Charlotte continued to pursue her dreams of poetic success, and resolved to send a number of the unsold copies to some of the most famous writers of the day, repeating the experiment undertaken by herself and Branwell ten years earlier. The recipients of this gesture included Wordsworth, Tennyson and Hartley Coleridge (Southey, whose words of discouragement Brontë had ultimately chosen to ignore, had died some years earlier). The letters offering the gift of the volume of poetry are mockingly self-disparaging in tone, informing the correspondent that ‘My relatives Ellis and Acton Bell and myself, heedless of the repeated warnings of various respectable publishers, have committed the rash act of printing a volume of poems.’ However, the gift of the volume to the various writers of the day suggests that Charlotte retained at least some hope that the poetic talents of the Bells would be recognised. This was not to be, and, though the poetry of Charlotte and her sisters has received subsequent critical attention, their success was to come as novelists rather than poets.

  Charlotte’s earlier letters and attempts to succeed as a poet suggest that, in her youth at least, she ranked poetry above novels in terms of literary greatness. This is particularly evident in a letter written to Ellen Nussey in which she responds to her friend’s request to recommend some books for her perusal. Listing a number of poets, including Milton, Shakespeare, Byron, Wordsworth and Southey, she continues, ‘For fiction, read Scott alone; all novels after his are worthless.’ Her stance reflects broader attitudes towards literature, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the novel was persistently viewed as inferior to poetry.

  Though Charlotte had harboured dreams of poetic success for many years, she had also been engaged in storytelling from her childhood, and the decision she now took to pursue a career as a novelist, though it in some respects may be perceived as a business decision, was nevertheless one with which she was more than comfortable as a writer. Hence, following the relative failure of the small volume of poetry, the sisters turned their attention to novel writing. In 1846, having completed their first novels (Charlotte’s The Professor, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey), they began to approach publishers with a view to securing publication. They met with several rejections before Thomas Newby agreed to publish Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, on the proviso that the authors contributed towards the cost of publication. Charlotte, however, could find no one willing to publish The Professor. This rejection must have pained Charlotte deeply: as we have seen, from childhood she had aligned herself with Branwell, and Emily with Anne. By this time, Branwell’s lifestyle could no longer be excused as mere youthful exuberance, and the family’s hopes for the only son were effectively dashed. The literary alliance formed by Charlotte and Branwell had come to nothing, and the rejection of The Professor must have further increased Charlotte’s sense of failure in light of her sisters’ moderate success (though Newby’s terms were far from favourable).

  Charlotte did not, however, despair, and worked ferventlyon a new project – a three-volume novel which she hoped would meet with greater success than its predecessor. Meanwhile, she continued to submit The Professor to various publishing houses, though she had more or less resigned herself to rejection. She was therefore delighted when she received a detailed response from the publishers Smith, Elder and Co., who, while declin
ing to publish her novel, nevertheless recognised her potential, and invited her to submit a three-volume work for their consideration. Charlotte, in due course, sent them the manuscript of Jane Eyre. Writing his memoirs over fifty years later, George Smith recalled the first impression the work made on him:

  After breakfast on Sunday morning I took the [manuscript] of ‘Jane Eyre’ to my little study, and began to read it. The story quickly took me captive. Before twelve o’clock my horse came to the door, but I could not put the book down […] Presently the servant came to tell me that luncheon was ready; I asked him to bring me a sandwich and a glass of wine, and still went on with ‘Jane Eyre’ […] [B]efore I went to bed that night I had finished reading the manuscript.8

  Unsurprisingly, given this response, Smith, Elder and Co. agreed to the publication of Jane Eyre. They proved to be far more scrupulous publishers than Newby, who had taken no steps towards publishing Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey since his initial acceptance. It was therefore Jane Eyre that appeared first, in October 1847, with Charlotte once again adopting the pseudonym Currer Bell. The novel proved an instant success, selling widely and attracting the attention of both periodicals and the major writers of the day: it was the subject of endless column inches in the press over the coming months, as speculation mounted as to the identity, and in particular the sex, of the author, and debate over the morality of the tale raged.

  Charlotte took an avid interest in the critics’ responses to her first published novel. Most were positive: the critic in The Atlas, for example, declared it to be ‘not merely a work of great promise; it is one of absolute performance’, while The Critic, which had sung the praises of Poems, described it as ‘a remarkable novel, in all respects very far indeed above the average of those which the literary journalist is doomed every season to peruse’. Jane Eyre was not without its critics, however, and Charlotte was particularly alert to criticisms of her writing, her long-cherished desire for literary success perhaps making her feel such things more keenly than most. For the rest of her life, she was to take criticism of her work to heart. The central accusation levelled at Jane Eyre involved the issue of morality. Given the novel’s content, and the Victorian sense of propriety, this is, perhaps, hardly surprising: Charlotte’s ‘hero’, Rochester, is far from the masculine ideal, though he may be a more realistic representative of the Victorian gentleman than many other literary heroes of the time. He openly admits to an illicit relationship with a French actress, through which he may or may not have fathered an illegitimate child; he attempts to dupe the heroine into a bigamous marriage, before trying to convince her to live as his mistress; and for all this he is apparently rewarded at the conclusion of the novel with a happy marriage to the heroine. While the image of the Victorians as bastions of purity, morality and propriety is far from an accurate one, it has emerged in part as a consequence of the image of itself that Victorian society wished to project. Novels, according to the moralists of the day, should reflect this sense of morality – particularly novels that were likely to be read by ladies. Fiction that suggested that the upper and middle classes were less than virtuous was distinctly unwelcome in certain quarters of society, and this is reflected in some of the reviews of Jane Eyre.

  A number of reviewers highlighted the questionable morality of the novel, while refraining from outright condemnation. Elizabeth Rigby, however, writing in the Quarterly Review, was deeply critical of the morality of Jane Eyre, suggesting that its popularity was due to its vulgarity, rather than its literary merit, and accusing the author of committing a great offence in her characterisation of Rochester – intended to appeal to the reader in spite of the fact that he ‘is a man who deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man’. She was similarly critical of the character of the heroine, accusing her of ‘pedantry, stupidity, [and] gross vulgarity’. She declared the novel ‘an anti-Christian composition’, and accused it of ‘moral, religious and literary deficiencies’. While such criticism undoubtedly stung, the anonymous review did not appear until December 1848; hence its effect on the author of Jane Eyre was tempered by the recent deaths of Branwell and Emily. Nevertheless, Charlotte would return to the review while writing Shirley, and responded specifically to Rigby’s criticisms in a Preface written for her second novel.

  As well as the perceived questionable morality of Charlotte’s novel, a number of reviewers (Elizabeth Rigby amongst them) criticised the improbable and sensational aspects of the tale. Such assertions are, in many ways, justified, though this is not necessarily a criticism of the novel, and indeed the somewhat sensational plot has no doubt contributed to the ongoing popularity of Jane Eyre. The mid-nineteenth century, however, was the age of the realist novel, and Jane Eyre’s engagement with this genre is, to say the least, problematic: realist elements combine with the sensational and the supernatural, and for some readers these contrasting features sit uneasily alongside one another. While a number of reviewers praised Charlotte’s characterisation, they questioned the more sensational aspects of the plot: H.F. Chorley, writing in The Athenaeum, concluded, ‘we think the heroine too outrageously tried, and too romantically assisted in her difficulties,’ while G.H. Lewes suggested that it contained ‘too much melodrama and improbability, which smack of the circulating-library’. Such criticisms had a significant effect on Charlotte Brontë and her writing. Ever-conscious of her critics, she attempted, not entirely successfully, to address some of these concerns in her next novel, Shirley.

  While reviewers debated the merits of Jane Eyre, there was also, continued and fevered speculation as to the identity of the author, much of which focused, to Charlotte’s dismay, on the gender of the writer. Reviewers were divided over the question of the sex of the author: The Examiner declared that ‘Though relating to a woman, we do not believe [Jane Eyre] to have been written by a woman,’ while the reviewer in Era asserted even more vehemently, ‘No woman could have penned […] Jane Eyre.’ G.H. Lewes, writing in Eraser’s Magazine, disagreed, declaring ‘The writer is evidently a woman.’ The Christian Remembrancer agreed with Lewes, stating ‘we […] cannot doubt that the book is written by a female,’ and Thackeray echoed this sentiment in a private letter, though noting that the author ‘knows her language better than most ladies do’. The questionable morality of Charlotte’s characters, and particularly Rochester, might be partially excused if the author was a man; should the author prove to be a woman, however, her knowledge of such things would be considered shocking in certain sections of society. Again, Charlotte’s concern, undoubtedly, was to try and ensure that her work was judged on its literary merits, rather than on the sex of its author. Discussing the speculation in a letter to her publishers, she wrote, ‘To such critics I would say – “to you I am neither Man nor Woman -I come before you as an Author only – it is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me – the sole ground on which I accept your judgement.”‘ She was all too aware, though, that such protestations would not be heeded.

  After witnessing the success of Jane Eyre, Newby finally published Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. There was immediate speculation as to the relationship between the authors of these novels and the author of Jane Eyre. Rumour suggested that Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell were one and the same person, and that Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights were the early productions of the author of Jane Eyre. Charlotte was anxious to dispel this myth – an anxiety probably at least partly rooted in the public response to Wuthering Heights in particular: if Jane Eyre could be accused of coarseness, it was nothing to Emily’s novel, with its portrayal of the passionate, seemingly demonic Heathcliff. Reviewers described him as ‘an incarnation of evil qualities’ and ‘a creature in whom every evil passion seems to have reached a gigantic excess’, and the novel as a whole was deemed to be coarse and vulgar. Deeply concerned as she was with the criticism of Jane Eyre, Charlotte was less than desirous to have Wuthering Heights attributed to her as well. In December 1847, shortly after the public
ation of her sisters’ novels, she wrote to her publisher, declaring – perhaps disingenuously – ‘I should not be ashamed to be considered the author of “Wuthering Heights” and ‘Agnes Grey”, but possessing no real claim to that honour, I would rather not have it attributed to me, thereby depriving the true authors of their just meed.’ Nevertheless, speculation as to the identity of the Bell ‘brothers’, and rumours that the authors of the three novels were in fact one and the same person, continued to circulate.

  In June the following year, T.C. Newby published Anne Brontë’s second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Through the experiences of her heroine, Helen Graham, Anne Brontë explores the issues of women’s role within marriage and the effects of dissipation on the character of the husband (Arthur Huntingdon -influenced partly by Branwell Brontë), portraying the wife of an intemperate and adulterous husband who flees the marital home in order to protect her child. Inevitably, given the Victorian sense of propriety, as well as widespread attitudes towards the sanctity of marriage, the book provoked intense criticism, and Charlotte herself disapproved of her sister’s choice of subject matter. Reviewers declared it to be ‘repulsive’, ‘coarse’ and ‘disgusting’, and Sharpe’s London Magazine was anxious to dissuade its ‘lady-readers’ from reading it. Undoubtedly partly as a consequence of such reviews, Charlotte became even more anxious to disassociate herself from her sisters’ work, and to prove the separate identities of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The speculation that they were one and the same was given fresh impetus by Anne and Emily’s publisher, Thomas Newby, who had written to an American publisher informing them that, ‘to the best of his belief “Jane Eyre” “Wuthering Heights” – ‘Agnes Grey” – and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” […] were all the production of one writer,’ no doubt an attempt to increase the sales of Anne and Emily’s works, which had proved far less popular with the reading public than Jane Eyre.