Victorian Women Novelists

1187 Words5 Pages
Introduction: The Victorian era is known for the galaxy of female novelists. CHARLOTTE BRONTE, EMILY BRONTE, Mrs. Gaskell and GEORGE ELIOT are in prime focus. They also include Mrs. Trollope, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Maroh, Mrs. Bray, Mrs. Henry, charlotte younger, Miss Oliphant, and still more. However, the four most important women novelists, who yet are quite important, are charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell and George Eliot. Of the four, the two first named were sister, and their methods and achievement as novelists met at many places. But each of the remaining two priced her own line and made herself known in the field of English novel in her own way. CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816 – 55) – The three Bronte sister – Anne, charlotte, and Emily – collectively known often as the “ Stormy sisterhood”, who took the England of their time by storm, were in actual life Shy and isolated girls with rather uneventful lives. All of them died young and died of Tuberculosis. Hugh Walden to assert: “The Bronte belongs to that class of writers whom, it is impossible to understand except through the medium of biography.” Thus Samuel Chew observe “The three Bronte sister have been overlaid with so much biography, criticism, and conjecture that is reading about than there is danger best their own books be left unread.” Charlotte wrote four novels - ‘The professor’, ‘Vilette’, ‘Jane Eyre’and ‘Shirley’. The first two novels were based on her personal experiences at a Brussels boarding house where she most probably fell in love with the Belgian scholar Hager who perfectly answered her conception of a dashing hero of the Byronic type. The heroine of her third novel is a governess, just like her sister Anne. Her tempestuous love affair with Rochester – a combination of wonderful nobility and meanness is the staple of this novel. Charlotte Bronte in her novel revolted against the
Open Document