Advertisement

Famous line from 'Jane Eyre' inspires short story anthology

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

"Reader, I married him." That famous line from Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" is to be the jumping-off point for a collection of short stories due to release in 2016, marking 200 years since the author's birth.

Tracy Chevalier ("Girl With a Pearl Earring") will edit the anthology, which will feature contributions from British and North American female writers including Helen Dunmore ("A Spell of Winter"), Susan Hill ("The Woman in Black"), Emma Donoghue ("Room"), Audrey Niffenegger ("The Time Traveler's Wife") and Jane Gardam ("Old Fifth").

"Reader, I married him," in which 'him' refers to the character Mr. Rochester, is the most famous line in Brontë's 1847 novel and much meaning has been assigned to it. The short declarative sentence is described as the romantic turning point in the novel, one that points it toward a Victorian happy ending, but also as a feminist statement for its time, suggesting it was Jane who decided to marry Mr. Rochester and not the other way around.

Chevalier said: "Charlotte Brontë emerged from the most unlikely of places -- a small parsonage in an isolated Yorkshire village -- to become a celebrated author in an era when women were not encouraged to express themselves publicly or to be ambitious. Women writers owe her and her sisters a lot for kicking open that door."

The short story collection, which will be named for the famous line, is one of several plans in place to mark the 200th anniversary of Brontë's birth on April 21, 1816. Among them, Chevalier is to curate an exhibition called "I Shall Go Off Like a Bombshell" starting in February at the Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire.

A touring exhibition called "Celebrating Charlotte" will also be shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.

Closer to the events, the website bronte200.org will gather information about the bicentenary activities. For now, Brontë fans can join the mailing list of the Brontë Society for news of bicentennial activities for Charlotte and her siblings: Branwell (2017), Emily (2018) and Anne (2020).