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the north of England. “Who, indeed, but a woman
could have ventured, with the smallest prospect of success, to fill three octavo
volumes with the history of a woman’s heart?”
    As Elizabeth Gaskell wrote in her biography of
Charlotte, following the publication of Jane Eyre Charlotte’s life became “divided into two parallel currents,” that of Bell and
Brontë, and “there were separate duties belonging to each character—not opposing
each other; not impossible, but difficult to be reconciled.” Gaskell noted
ruefully that when a man becomes an author, “it is probably merely a change of
employment to him,” but for a woman to take on the same role, especially in
secret, the burdens seem too great to overcome. “[N]o other can take up the
quiet, regular duties of the daughter, the wife, or the mother,” Gaskell wrote.
Sequestered at the parsonage, where the most exciting part of her day was the
postman’s call, Charlotte was somewhat protected from the pressures of her
fame—but not entirely.
    Literary London was buzzing about Currer Bell. Most
agreed that whoever the author was, he or she had extraordinary talent. “This is
not merely a work of great promise,” one critic said, “it is one of absolute
performance. It is one of the most powerful domestic romances which has been
published for many years.” There came an inevitable backlash—among other things,
the novel was said to be coarse and immoral—but those reviews were drowned out
by the praise. (Some critics wanted it both ways: The
Economist declared the novel a triumph if written by a man, “odious”
if written by a woman.)
    Charlotte could not resist sharing a copy of the
book (along with some laudatory reviews) with her gruff father, who had no idea
that she’d been published. All of Patrick’s support, interest, and hope for the
future had been lost with his son. But he read the novel one afternoon, summoned
his daughters to tea, declared the book “a better one than I expected,” and did
not mention it again for the next few years.
    Although Charlotte found refuge in her anonymity,
her happiness about the novel’s triumphant reception was tempered by the
drubbing that Emily took for Wuthering Heights. Agnes
Grey (like poor Anne) did not stir a strong reaction in anyone. Their
novels were published together in December 1847, just as Charlotte was preparing
for the second edition of Jane Eyre. Unfortunately,
Emily and Anne found their publisher to have done a shamefully shoddy job; their
books were riddled with mortifying mistakes of spelling and punctuation that
they’d corrected on proof sheets, and new errors had been introduced. Most of
the reviews of Wuthering Heights were unkind.
Although critics recognized the power of Ellis Bell’s writing, one reviewer
deemed the characters “grotesque, so entirely without art, that they strike us
as proceeding from a mind of limited experience.” And readers were warned that
they would be “disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity and
the most diabolical hate and vengeance” in Wuthering
Heights. Emily, always reclusive, did not speak of her pain at
reading the negative reviews; nor did she admit how hurtful it was to see
Charlotte’s work bask in adulation at the same time. But after her death it was
discovered that tucked inside her desk, Emily had saved the clippings of the
reviews comparing her novel unfavorably with Jane
Eyre.
    Meanwhile, Charlotte clutched the protective
umbrella of Currer Bell as the storm of publicity raged around her. In a letter
to her editor, she wondered “what author would be without the advantage of being
able to walk invisible?”
    For the third edition of Jane
Eyre , she wrote a brief author’s note “to explain that my claim to
the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the
authorship of