Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816 in Yorkshire, England. Her mother died when she was young, leaving Charlotte and her siblings to be raised by her aunt. Charlotte attended a poor quality boarding school where two of her sisters died. This negatively impacted Charlotte's health. As children at home, Charlotte and her siblings created imaginary worlds and stories. Charlotte went on to work as a governess and teacher before publishing her famous novel Jane Eyre in 1847, which told the story of a plain governess and was based on Charlotte's own experiences. The book was a great success.

2. Charlotte was born
in Thornton, Yorkshire in 1816, the
third of six children, to Maria
and Patrick Bronte, an
Irish Anglican clergyman. Her
mother died of cancer on 15
September 1821, leaving five
daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, Char
lotte, Emily, Anne and a son
Branwell to be taken care of by her
sister, Elizabeth Branwell.

3. In August 1824, Patrick
Bronte sent Charlotte, Emily,
Maria and Elizabeth to the
Clergy Daughters' School
at Cowan Bridge in
Lancashire. Charlotte
maintained the school's poor
conditions permanently
affected her health and
physical development and
hastened the deaths of Maria
(born 1814) and Elizabeth
(born 1815), who died
of tuberculosis in June 1825.
After the deaths of her older
sisters, her father removed
Charlotte and Emily from the
school.

4. At home in Haworth Parsonage Charlotte
acted as "the motherly friend and guardian
of her younger sisters".She and her
surviving siblings — Branwell, Emily, and
Anne – created their own literary fictional
worlds and began chronicling the lives and
struggles of the inhabitants of their
imaginary kingdoms. Charlotte and
Branwell wrote Byronic stories about their
imagined country, "Angria", and Emily
and Anne wrote articles and poems
about ”Gondal”. The sagas they created
were elaborate and convoluted (and exist in
partial manuscripts) and provided them
with an obsessive interest during childhood
and early adolescence which prepared them
for literary vocations in adulthood.

6. The room where Charlotte loved to spend
almost her whole day

7. Between 1831 and 1832 Charlotte continued her
education at Roe Head in Mirfield, where she met
her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen
Nussey and Mary Taylor. In 1833 she wrote a
novella, The Green Dwarf, using the name
Wellesley. She returned to Roe Head as a teacher
from 1835 to 1838. In 1839 she took up the first
of many positions as governess to families
in Yorkshire, a career she pursued until 1841. In
particular, from May to July 1839 she was
employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer
residence, Stone Gappe, in Lothersdale, where one
of her charges was John Benson Sidgwick (1835–
1927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw
a Bible at Charlotte, an incident which may have
been the inspiration for that part of the opening
chapter of Jane Eyer in which John Reed throws a
book at the young Jane.

8. Charlotte's first
manuscript, The
Professor, did not secure a
apublisher, although she was
heartened by an encouraging
response from Smith, Elder &
Co of Cornhill, who expressed
an interest in any longer works
which "Currer Bell" might
wish to send.

9. A letter from
Charlotte
Bronte to
Ellen Nussay

10. Charlotte responded by finishing and
sending a second manuscript in August
1847, and six weeks later Jane Eyre: An
Autobiography, was published. It tells the
story of a plain governess (Jane)
who, after early life difficulties, falls in
love with her employer, Mr Rochester.
They marry, but only after Rochester's
insane first wife (of whom Jane initially
had no knowledge) dies in a dramatic
house fire.
Charlotte believed art was most convincing
when based on personal experience; in Jane
Eyre she transformed the experience into a
novel with universal appeal.

12. Following the success of Jane Eyre, in
1848 Charlotte began work on the
manuscript of her second novel, Shirley.
The manuscript was partially completed
when the Brontë household suffered a
tragic series of events, the deaths of
three family members within eight
months.
Charlotte was unable to write at this
time.
After Anne's death Charlotte resumed
writing as a way of dealing with her
grief, and Shirley which deals with
themes of industrial unrest and the role
of women in society was published in
October 1849.

13. Without a doubt, Charlotte Brontë was progressive in
her beliefs. In a time when women were considered
little more than social adornments and bearers of
offspring, Charlotte Brontë bravely contradicted
society through her writing. Her novels speak volumes
for the oppressed woman; thus establishing Charlotte
Brontë as one of the first modern women of her time.
To refer to Charlotte Brontë as a feminist would,
however, be an insufferable misrepresentation. Unlike
George Sand, who by appearances and her standard
of living epitomized the nineteenth-century feminist,
Charlotte Brontë withdrew from a society that would
not entirely accept her, and expressed her stifled ideals
through her words. Slight in size, perpetually modest,
it was Brontës suppressed spirit that gave way to her
literary fantasies. She often likened herself to others
in her oppressed situation; the ugly daughter or poor
spinster, which she equated to slaves imprisoned by
circumstances beyond their control.

14. Thank You for
attention!