Selected Letters

Charlotte Brontë

Sep 2010 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

'Dangerous as lucifer matches.' That was how Arthur Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë's husband for the last nine months of her life, described her letters. Full of acute observations, pithy character sketches, and passionate convictions, the letters are our most direct source of information about the lives of the Brontës and our closest approach to the author of Jane Eyre. In them Charlotte writes of life at Haworth Parsonage, her experiences at a Belgian school, and her intense feelings for the Belgian schoolteacher, M. Heger. She endures the agony of the death of her siblings, and enjoys the success as a writer that brings her into contact with the London literary scene. Vivid and intimate, her letters give fresh insight into the novels, and into the development of her distinct literary style. Margaret Smith's fine edition includes invaluable notes on Brontë's correspondents, and Janet Gezari contributes a new introduction that relates the letters to both Brontë's life and her creative accomplishment. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

About the author

Margaret Smith is Vice-President of the Brontë Society and editor of the complete three-volume edition of the Letters. She is co-author, with Christine Alexander, of The Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Janet Gezari is the author of Charlotte Brontë and Defensive Conduct: the Author and the Body at Risk (1992) and Last Things: Emily Brontë's Poems (OUP, 2007). She has also written the introduction to the new edition of Brontë's Shirley for OWC.