Charlotte Brontë in the context of Brontë Parsonage Museum

A first-person narrative (also known as a first-person perspective, voice, point of view, etc.) is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from that storyteller's own personal point of view, using first-person grammar such as "I", "me", "my", and "myself" (also, in plural form, "we", "us", etc.). It must be narrated by a first-person character, such as a protagonist (or other focal character), re-teller, witness, or peripheral character. Alternatively, in a visual storytelling medium (such as video, television, or film), the first-person perspective is a graphical perspective rendered through a character's visual field, so the camera is "seeing" out of a character's eyes.

A classic example of a first-person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), in which the title character is telling the story in which she herself is also the protagonist: "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me". Srikanta by Bengali writer Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is another first-person perspective novel which is often called a "masterpiece". Srikanta, the title character and protagonist of the novel, tells his own story: "What memories and thoughts crowd into my mind, as, at the threshold of the afternoon of my wandering life, I sit down to write the story of its morning hours!"

Jane Eyre (/ɛər/ AIR; originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published in January 1848 by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.

The novel revolutionised prose fiction, being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness" and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce.

A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction work focused on the relationship and romantic love between two people, often concluding with an emotionally satisfying or optimistic ending. Authors who have significantly contributed to the development of this genre include Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë.

Romance novels can encompass various subgenres, such as fantasy, contemporary, historical romance, paranormal fiction, sapphic, and science fiction. They may also contain tropes such as enemies to lovers, second chance, and forced proximity. While women have traditionally been considered the primary readers of romance novels, a 2017 study commissioned by the Romance Writers of America found that men accounted for 18% of romance book buyers.

Victorian literature is English literature during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). In the Victorian era, the novel became the leading literary genre in English. English writing from this era reflects the major transformations in most aspects of English life, from scientific, economic, and technological advances to changes in class structures and the role of religion in society. The number of new novels published each year increased from 100 at the start of the period to 1000 by the end of it. Famous novelists from this period include Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, the three Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë), Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Thomas Hardy, and Rudyard Kipling.

The Romantic period was a time of abstract expression and inward focus; during the Victorian era, writers focused on social issues. Writers such as Thomas Carlyle called attention to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution and what Carlyle called the "Mechanical Age". This awareness inspired the subject matter of other authors, like poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and novelists Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Barrett's works on child labor cemented her success in a male-dominated world where women writers often had to use masculine pseudonyms. Dickens employed humor and an approachable tone while addressing social problems such as wealth disparity. Hardy used his novels to question religion and social structures.

Wuthering Heights is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two landowning families living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' ethnically uncertain foster son, Heathcliff. Driven by themes of love, possession and revenge, the novel, influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction, is considered a classic of English literature.

Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey before the success of their sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, but they were published later. The first American edition was published in April 1848 by Harper & Brothers of New York. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1850.

Emily Jane Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English writer best known for her 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. She also co-authored a book of poetry with her sisters Charlotte and Anne entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

Emily was the fifth of six Brontë siblings, four of whom survived into adulthood. Her mother died when she was three, leaving the children in the care of their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. Apart from brief intervals at school, Emily was mostly taught at home by her father, Patrick Brontë, who was the curate of Haworth. She was very close to her siblings, especially her younger sister Anne, and together they wrote little books and journals depicting imaginary worlds. She was described by her sister Charlotte as solitary, strong-willed and nonconforming, with a keen love of nature and animals.

Patrick Branwell Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; 26 June 1817 – 24 September 1848) was an English painter and writer. He was the only son of the Brontë family, and brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Known as Branwell, he was rigorously tutored at home by his father, and earned praise for his poetry and translations from the classics. However, he drifted between jobs, supporting himself by portrait-painting, and gave way to drug and alcohol addiction, apparently worsened by a failed relationship with a married woman. He died at the age of 31.

Maria Brontë (née Branwell; 15 April 1783 – 15 September 1821) was an English woman and the mother of the English writers Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and of their brother Branwell Brontë, who was a poet and painter.

Born in Penzance, Maria Branwell was the daughter of a successful Methodist merchant and civic leader. After the deaths of her parents, at age 29, Branwell moved to Yorkshire to help her aunt with the domestic needs of Woodhouse Grove School. There she met Patrick Brontë, who also worked for the school as a classics examiner; they married after a brief courtship. Much of her married life was spent in Thornton. Maria Branwell gave birth to Maria (deceased in childhood), Elizabeth, Charlotte, Patrick (known as Branwell), Emily, and Anne. Shortly after Anne's birth, the family moved to Haworth. Within a year, Maria Branwell fell critically ill for eight months and died, aged thirty-eight. Maria's sister Elizabeth Branwell became ward for Maria's children.

Patrick Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; born Patrick Brunty; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish Anglican priest and author who spent most of his adult life in England. He was the father of the writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, and of Branwell Brontë, his only son. Patrick outlived his wife, Maria Branwell, by forty years, by which time all of their six children had also died.

Jane Eyre is the fictional heroine and the titular protagonist in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name. The story follows Jane's infancy and childhood as an orphan, her employment first as a teacher and then as a governess, and her romantic involvement with her employer, the mysterious and moody Edward Rochester. Jane is noted by critics for her dependability, strong mindedness, and individualism. The author deliberately created Jane as an unglamorous figure, in contrast to conventional heroines of fiction, and possibly part-autobiographical.

Jane is a popular literary figure due to critical acclaim by readers for the impact she held on romantic and feminist writing. The novel has been adapted into a number of other forms, including theatre, film and television.

Edward Fairfax Rochester (often referred to as Mr Rochester) is a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre. The brooding master of Thornfield Hall, Rochester is the employer and eventual husband of the novel's titular protagonist, Jane Eyre. He is regarded as an archetypal Byronic hero.

Actors who have portrayed Rochester on screen include Orson Welles (1943), Stanley Baker (1956), Timothy Dalton (1983), William Hurt (1996), Ciarán Hinds (1997), Toby Stephens (2006) and Michael Fassbender (2011).

Thornfield Hall is a location in the 1847 novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. It is the home of the male romantic lead, Edward Fairfax Rochester, where much of the action takes place.

Brontë uses the depiction of Thornfield in a manner consistent with the gothic tone of the novel as a whole. An isolated mansion of unspecified size, the house has a number of apparently unused rooms that become important to the narrative during the Bertha Mason passages. The Hall's gloomy character also expresses and amplifies the sense of Mr. Rochester's depression and malaise before he falls in love with Jane.

A History of British Birds is a natural history book by Thomas Bewick, published in two volumes. Volume 1, Land Birds, appeared in 1797. Volume 2, Water Birds, appeared in 1804. A supplement was published in 1821. The text in Land Birds was written by Ralph Beilby, while Bewick took over the text for the second volume. The book is admired mainly for the beauty and clarity of Bewick's wood-engravings, which are widely considered his finest work, and among the finest in that medium.

British Birds has been compared to works of poetry and literature. It plays a recurring role in Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre. William Wordsworth praised Bewick in the first lines of his poem "The Two Thieves": "Oh now that the genius of Bewick were mine, And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne."

Jean Rhys CBE (/riːs/ REESS; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. In 1978, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her writing.

The Brontës (/ˈbrɒntiz/) were a 19th-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Born to Patrick Brontë, a curate, and his wife, Maria, the sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849), were all poets and novelists who published their work under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell respectively. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights, Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature after their deaths.

The two eldest Brontë children were Maria (1814–1825) and Elizabeth (1815–1825), who both died at an early age. The three surviving sisters and their brother, Branwell (1817–1848) were very close. As children, they developed their imaginations first through oral storytelling and play, set in an intricate imaginary world, and then through the collaborative writing of increasingly complex stories set in their fictional world. The early deaths of their mother and two older sisters marked them and influenced their writing profoundly, as did their isolated upbringing. They were raised in a religious family. The Brontë birthplace in Thornton is a place of pilgrimage and their later home, the parsonage at Haworth in Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of world's fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organised by Henry Cole and Albert, Prince Consort of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom.

Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Michael Faraday (who assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits), Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist royal family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray. The future Arts and Crafts proponent William Morris, then a teenager, later said he refused to attend the Exhibition on the grounds of taste. Exhibits showcased include the first public flush toilets invented by George Jennings.

Agnes Grey, A Novel is the first novel by English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works within families of the English gentry. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Brontë's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and how it affected a young woman.

The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression, abuse of women and governesses, isolation, and ideas of empathy. An additional theme is the fair treatment of animals. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of a bildungsroman, employing ideas of personal growth and coming of age.