The public tried to guess who “Currer Bell” was. When a theory began to circulate that one person had written all of the novels, Charlotte and Anne travelled to London to reveal themselves to Charlotte’s publisher to prove that “Currer” and “Acton” were two different people. (Emily was too retiring to go with them.) The publisher, George Smith, was astonished to discover that the author of Jane Eyre was a small, shy woman, but he and his mother took her in and encouraged her to meet members of the literary world, including William Thackeray, one of Charlotte’s favourite writers. He famously held a dinner party that she attended, where she sat mute, refusing to blossom into a witty guest, and Thackeray left the party for his club, not to return! Charlotte also met and became friends with other writers, including Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Gaskell; the latter published a biography of Charlotte after her death.
In 1848 and 1849, within the space of eight months, Charlotte lost Branwell, Emily and Anne—the two sisters to the tuberculosis rife in Haworth, Branwell to alcoholism. Still she managed to continue to write, producing and publishing Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853). In 1854 she married Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate, who had pursued her despite her father’s objections. Charlotte was only to enjoy less than a year of marriage before she died, pregnant, possibly of dehydration and malnourishment from severe morning sickness, or from the typhus that struck down an old family servant.
CREDITS
Cover design by Studio Takoma
Cover artwork © Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial/Bridgeman Images
COPYRIGHT
William Morrow
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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New York, NY 10007
First published in hardcover in Great Britain by Borough Press, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, in 2016
First Morrow Paperbacks edition published 2016
1
In the compilation and introductory material © Tracy Chevalier 2016
My Mother’s Wedding © Tessa Hadley 2016; Luxury Hour © Sarah Hall 2016; Grace Poole Her Testimony © Helen Dunmore 2016; Dangerous Dog © Kirsty Gunn 2016; To Hold © Joanna Briscoe 2016; It’s a Man’s Life, Ladies © Jane Gardam 2016; Since First I Saw Your Face © Emma Donoghue 2016; Reader, I Married Him © Susan Hill 2016; The Mirror © Francine Prose 2016; A Migrating Bird © Elif Shafak 2016; Behind the Mountain © Evie Wyld 2016; The China from Buenos Aires © Patricia Park 2016; Reader, She Married Me © Salley Vickers 2016; Dorset Gap © Tracy Chevalier 2016; Party Girl © Nadifa Mohamed 2016; Transference © Esther Freud 2016; The Mash-Up © Linda Grant 2016; The Self-Seeding Sycamore © Lionel Shriver 2016; The Orphan Exchange © Audrey Niffenegger 2016; Double Men © Namwali Serpell 2016; Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark © Elizabeth McCracken 2016
ISBN 978-0-06-244709-8
EPub Edition MARCH 2016 ISBN 9780062447104
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Tracy Chevalier, Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre
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