JANE EYRE (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a
novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16
October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen
name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was published the
following year by Harper & Brothers of New York.
Primarily of the Bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and
experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood
and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of fictitious
Thornfield Hall. In its internalisation of the action--the focus is on
the gradual unfolding of Jane's moral and spiritual sensibility, and all
the events are coloured by a heightened intensity that was previously
the domain of poetry--Jane Eyre revolutionised the art of fiction.
Charlotte Brontë has been called the 'first historian of the private
consciousness' and the literary ancestor of writers like Joyce and
Proust. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong
sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider
ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the
novel's exploration of classism, sexuality, religion, and
proto-feminism.