Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, and died in 1855. In the intervening years, she wrote a collection of poems and three novels: The Professor, Jane Eyre (1847), and Villette (1852). A fourth novel was left unfinished upon her death. Read more about Charlotte Brontë's life and works.
1. Life of Charlotte Brontë
by Elizabeth Gaskell, Elisabeth Jay (Editor). Penguin. From the publisher: "Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte Brontë, and, having been invited to write the official life, determined both to tell the truth and to honour her friend... She wrote from a vivid accumulation of letters, interviews, and observation, establishing the details of Charlotte's life and recreating her background."
2. Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life
by Lyndall Gordon. Norton. From the publisher: "Drawing on Brontë's unpublished letters, journals, early stories, and the manuscript of Villette, her last, unfinished novel, Gordon takes readers into the unseen space in which Brontë was able to live and create."3. Companion to the Brontës
by Heather Glen (Editor). Cambridge University Press. From the publisher: "In a series of original essays, contributors explore the roots of the sisters' achievement in early nineteenth-century Haworth, and the childhood 'plays' they developed; they set these writings within the context of a wider history, and show how each sister engages with some of the central issues of her time."4. Charlotte Brontë: The Imagination in History
by Heather Glen. Oxford University Press. From the publisher: "This examination of Charlotte Brontë's novels draws on extensive original research in a range of early Victorian writings, on subjects from women's day-dreaming to sanitary reform, from the Great Exhibition to early Victorian religious thought."5. Brontës A to Z
by Lisa Olson Paddock, Carl E. Rollyson. Facts on File. From the publisher: "Drawing from a range of biographical, critical, and primary sources, The Brontës A to Z is a comprehensive reference to the writings, characters, achievements, and personal history of the family."6. The Brontë Myth
by Lucasta Miller. Knopf Publishing. From the publisher: "Following the Brontë sisters through their many reincarnations at the hands of biographers, Lucasta Miller reveals as much about the impossible art of biography as she does about the Brontës themselves."7. Charlotte Brontë: A Monograph
by T. Wemyss Reid. M. S. G. House. From the publisher: "A sympathetic study of the life of the early Victorian novelist, based on research into primary source documents and on interviews with intimates of the Bronte family."8. Charlotte Bronte
by Jane Sellars. Oxford University Press. From the publisher: "This book, written by an acknowledged expert on the Brontes and beautifully illustrated throughout, provides a fluent, objective and compassionate account of the life of a much loved genius of English literature."9. Charlotte Brontë and Female Desire
by Jin-Ok Kim. Peter LangPublishing. From the publisher: "This book explores many forms of desire, including homoerotic and heterosexual desire, in Charlotte Brontë's works."10. Austen, Eliot, Charlotte Bronte & The Mentor-Lover
by Patricia Menon. Palgrave Macmillan. From the publisher: "This lucid and tightly argued study appraises their maturing interests, identifying what distinguishes each from the others as they contend with issues of sexuality, family, selfhood, freedom, conduct and gender."