Jane Eyre [Paperback]

Introduction by Diane Johnson
Commentary by G. K. Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Rigby, George Saintsbury, and Anthony Trollope

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

Initially published under the pseudonym Currer Bell in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’sJane Eyreerupted onto the English literary scene, immediately winning the devotion of many of the world’s most renowned writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, who declared it a work “of great genius.” Widely regarded as a revolutionary novel, Brontë’s masterpiece introduced the world to a radical new type of heroine, one whose defiant virtue and moral courage departed sharply from the more acquiescent and malleable female characters of the day. Passionate, dramatic, and surprisingly modern,Jane Eyreendures as one of the world’s most beloved novels.
 
Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide"At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Brontë."
--Virginia WoolfDiane Johnsonis the author of many books, including the bestselling novelLe Divorce,which was a 1997 National Book Award finalist, andLe Mariage.

1. In Jane Eyre, nothing can better show a man's moral worth than the way in which he treats the women in his life. How is Rochester's character reflected in the way he treats Jane, Adele, Bertha Mason, and Miss Ingram, and in his reported treatment of Celine Varens? How is St. John's character reflected in the way he treats Jane, Miss Oliver, and Diana and Mary? Why does this serve as such a good gauge of a man's morality and worth? What other relationships serve similar functions in the novel?

2. Throughout the novel, questions of identity are raised. From her identity as an orphan and stranger in the hostile environmelC*