161 years without Charlotte Brontë

Not that Charlotte Brontë's afterlife has been a quiet one. Much to her husband's distress when it came to personal matters (not when it came to 'professional' matters, though), her popularity started even before she died on March 31st, 1855. And it has only got bigger and bigger ever since. These days, she and her Jane Eyre are quite the buzz words, bringing new people to her world every day.

We know that Charlotte once wished 'to be for ever known' ('careful what you wish for', would have surely been Arthur Bell Nicholls's advice) but we do think her current popularity - and not just for the Jane Eyre film, but for the rest of smaller-scale projects too - would surpass even her wildest dreams. Shy as she undoubtedly was, we do think that she'd be quite unable to hide a smile and a blush at all this. But oh would she be proud!

The picture is from the manuscript of the preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre (27 December 1847) which is located at the Rosenbach Museum and Library (Pennsylvania). Rosen-blog contains a few more pictures of the manuscript and a comment about the Thackeray-mad-woman-in-the-attic-controversy.

(First published in 2011)