Bront�, Charlotte, pseudonym Currer Bell 1816-55 Charlotte worked for a time as a teacher and governess. In Brussels (1843-44), she formed an attachment to a married man, M Constantin Heger, who rejected her; she later scornfully satirized him in Villette (1852). Charlotte wrote four complete novels. The Professor, which was not published until after her death, dwells on the theme of moral madness, possibly inspired by Branwell's degeneration. It was rejected by her publisher, but with sufficient encouragement for her to complete her masterpiece, Jane Eyre (1847). This in essence, through the master-pupil love relationship between Rochester and Jane, constituted a magnificent plea for feminine equality with men in the avowal of their passions. It was followed in 1849 by Shirley, a novel set against the background of the Luddite riots.

By now her brother and two sisters were dead, and she was left alone at Haworth with her father. Villette, founded on her memories of Brussels, was published in 1853. In 1850 she met and formed a friendship with Mrs Gaskell, who wrote a memoir of her. She married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, in 1854 but died in pregnancy the following year, leaving the fragment of another novel, Emma. Two stories, The Secret and Lily Hart, were published for the first time in 1978.

Bibliography: W Gerin, Charlotte Bront� (1967); E Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bront� (1860).