Charlotte Brontë1997

In Charlotte Bronte, Diane Long Hoeveler and Lisa Jadwin offer a reasoned critical biography of the writer and a comprehensive survey of all Bronte's works, including newly transcribed juvenilia. Organizing their material chronologically, the authors present an informed perspective on the complex history of Bronte criticism and biography, with an emphasis on the most recent feminist, psychoanalytic, and new historicist viewpoints. An introductory chapter traces the substantial body of biographical works devoted to Charlotte Bronte, placing these in the context of their times and explicating the factors influencing biographers, such as prevailing social attitudes toward women and biographers' access to reliable primary sources. Subsequent chapters examine the juvenilia, the four novels, and the poetry and letters, interspersing each discussion with useful biographical details and valuable critical observations. Unlike other such studies, the volume combines rather than seperates biographical and critical components, and emphasizes the richness and complexity of Bronte's works rather than imposing a single way of approaching them. Thoroughly up to date and written with grace and elan, Charlotte Bronte provides an insightful resource for courses in Victorian literature, women's writing, and English literature; general readers, too, will find it appealing.