Jane Eyre

1847, 1971 Norton Critical edition
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
Original price unknown, bought used for $4.50
Torn paperback
B+

Although the love interest and thus the central romance don't appeal to me, this story remains a good one.  It's partly the first-person narrator.  Jane has a dry humour and a gift for description.  Also, the way she directly addresses the reader, mostly famously with the opening of the last chapter-- "Reader, I married him"-- is engaging.  I like the part about Jane's childhood and how she finds sisterhood with Diana and Mary, who turn out to be her cousins.  I also enjoy reading the parts about Jane's teaching career, and frankly a happier ending would've been if she'd used her inheritance to start a real school of her own.

A note about the "autobiography" part of the title.  Brontë admired Vanity Fair, which was then being serialised, and she dedicated this novel to William Makepeace Thackeray.  Unfortunately, she didn't know that Mrs. Thackeray was insane.  Rumours started about "Jane Eyre" being Mr. Thackeray's governess-mistress.  There are autobiographical elements of Charlotte's life in this novel, but less than in Villette (1853).

This copy has several notes, in tiny, almost illegible writing.  The most interesting is one about how Jane assumes she knows what others are thinking.