Jane Eyre is an 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë, published by Smith, Elder & Company, London. It is Brontë's strongest work and one of the most famous of British novels. Charlotte Brontë first published the book as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The novel was an immediate critical and popular success. Especially effusive in his praises was William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom Charlotte Brontë dedicated the novel's second edition, which was illustrated by F. H. Townsend. Plot introduction Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the formative years of the title character, a small, plain-faced, intelligent, and passionate English orphan girl. The plot follows the form of a Bildungsroman, a novel that tells the story of a child's maturation and focuses on the emotions and experiences that lead to his or her maturity. The novel goes through five distinct stages: (1) Jane'