Reader, if you're ready, so am I. These witty vignettes, set in Charlotte Bronte's imaginary world of Angria, feature debauched aristocrats, high-society courtesans and the rakish, brooding hero Zamorna, and offer a fascinating insight into Bronte's early writing. This is one of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries — including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

This collection brings together three pieces of work that, incredibly, were all published within a single year. That Jane Eyre (Charlotte), Wuthering Heights (Emily) and Agnes Grey (Anne), works of such lasting quality, were produced in such a short space of time is incredible enough: that it was all the output of three sisters living straitened lives in a lonely Yorkshire village was extraordinary. The story of the Bronte sisters is surely unique in literary history. Here were three girls who spent the greater part of their tragically brief lives in an austere, isolated parsonage on the Yorkshire moors. Their contacts with the outside world were brief and often unhappy, they fought a continual, hopeless battle against failing health, yet their combined willpower, energy and talent resulted in a stream of letters, stories, poems and novels, including two undoubted masterpieces, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The three novels in this volume form a representative cross-section of their mature work. The most famous of them, Jane Eyre, is a deeply-felt, passionate story, based in part on Charlotte's personal experiences, strong in situation and characterisation. Wuthering Heights, Emily's only prose work, though bitterly attacked in its day, is recognised today as one of the greatest of English romantic novels. It is a powerful and imaginative tale with marvellous descriptions of the wild beauty of the moors. Agnes Grey, by the youngest sister Anne, is a moving and simply written story of a governess's life, again based on her own unhappy experiences.

Charlotte Bronte's most famous novel was highly controversial when it was first published in 1847, it now regularly features on 'best novel' lists around the world. Jane Eyre is 'obscure, plain and little'. Despite her seeming lack of charm, her strong spirit makes an indelible impression, and many are drawn to her; not least the reader. The uncompromising yet restrained first-person narrative of Jane Eyre powerfully allies one with the heroine and instils an earnest desire to see Jane clear of the many trials, betrayals and cruelties she must endure. Through all her endeavours, Jane's quiet quest is to find the compassion and admiration of a kindred spirit; Charlotte Bronte's genius was to engender just this in the reader.

Helbling Readers Blue Series is designed for teenagers and young adults. Readers can choose from sensitively adapted teen-relevant classics and a gripping selection of original fiction.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied — Sleep never came!' Based on Charlotte Bronte's own experiences as a governess in Brussels, her last novel tells the story of lonely Lucy Snowe who finds employment at a girls' boarding school in the town of Villette. Finding the students challenging and experiencing the pain of unrequited love for the first time, Lucy becomes increasingly isolated in a world governed by societal expectation and struggles to maintain her integrity in the face of her envious and watchful employer, Madame Beck.

'The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself'. Rejected by her guardians and offered cold charity at an orphanage, Jane Eyre has come to rely on her own intelligence and strength of character to guide her through life. But when she becomes governess at Thornfield Hall, working for the gruff Mr. Rochester, she finds a man who may be her equal — and a secret that threatens to destroy them both. Published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, Jane Eyre enthralled and appalled readers with its passionate, defiant heroine. It remains a novel of unparalleled narrative grip, vivid imagery and naked emotional power.

Penguin Readers are written by specialist ELT authors. The language, vocabulary, style and content of every book is carefully graded to make sure it suits the learner's own language ability. Every Penguin Reader has a range of activities in the book and accompanying Factsheet to help increase comprehension and develop reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. The Professor is Charlotte Bronte's first novel, reflecting her own experience of life in Brussels and published after her untimely death. Viewed as a precursor to the narrative style and characterization she perfected in her later works, such as Jane Eyre, the novel is Bronte's portrayal of a love story from a male perspective. Writing from the point of view of orphaned young teacher William Crimsworth — as the sole male protagonist among Bronte's works — the author allows herself a freedom of action in love and will that reveals her character's loves, desires, and ambitions, as he forges a new life on his own terms in Brussels. William finds himself caught between the desire he feels for Zoraide Reuter, the beguiling head of the girls' school where he teaches, and the gentle love he feels for one of his pupils, Frances Henri. Exploring questions of love, identity, freedom, and independence, The Professor is an important work in the small opus that is Charlotte Bronte's significant contribution to English literature.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within as on the state of things without and around us. Considered one of her less well-known novels, Shirley is Charlotte Bronte's only historical work, set during the Napoleonic Wars. Wealthy and independent, Shirley is very different from her friend Caroline who has few prospects and is dependent on her uncle. Struggling Mill owner Robert Moore considers marriage to the monied Shirley in order to secure his financial future, however it is Caroline who he loves while Shirley has fallen for Robert's brother, an impoverished tutor who is deemed an unsuitable match for her. Unsentimental, yet unflinching in its honest portrayal of love, class conflict and identity, Bronte uses the backdrop of her beloved Yorkshire to play out the tensions and dramas of a society facing social and industrial upheaval.

'Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours: none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy'... Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his financial woes, yet his heart lies with his cousin Caroline, who, bored and desperate, lives as a dependent in her uncle's home with no prospect of a career. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert's brother, an impoverished tutor — a match opposed by her family. As industrial unrest builds to a potentially fatal pitch, can the four be reconciled? The Penguin English Library — 100 paperbacks of the best fiction written in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

'That evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate was of stone, and Hope a false idol — blind, bloodless, and of granite core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling as they were'. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Bronte's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances. The Penguin English Library — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte are three of the most remarkable novelists and poets of the nineteenth century. Charlotte was the most prolific of the three: Jane Eyre, the story of a governess' triumph over her lowly station in life; Shirley, set in Yorkshire at the time of the Luddite riots at the end of the Napoleonic war; and Villette, based on her experiences as a teacher in Belgium. The Professor, Charlotte's first novel, was published after her death. Anne Bronte was the author of Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights portrays the sinister Heathcliff and his love for Catherine Earnshaw.

The hero of Charlotte Bront�'s first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zora�de Reuter, complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school. Also included in this edition is Emma, Charlotte Bront�'s last, unfinished novel. Both works are drawn from the original Clarendon texts.

Shirley is Charlotte Bronte e's only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bronte's deep yearning for an earlier time.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Charlotte Bronte's first published novel, Jane Eyre was immediately recognised as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847. Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and loves Mr Rochester and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage are elements in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society.

The Professor is Charlotte Bronte s first novel, in which she audaciously inhabits the voice and consciousness of a man, William Crimsworth. Like Jane Eyre he is parentless; like Lucy Snowe in Villette he leaves the certainties of England to forge a life in Brussels. But as a man, William has freedom of action, and as a writer Bronte is correspondingly liberated, exploring the relationship between power and sexual desire. William s first person narration reveals his attraction to the dominating directress of the girls school where he teaches, played out in the school s secret garden. Balanced against this is his more temperate relationship with one of his pupils, Frances Henri, in which mastery and submission interplay. The Professor was published only after Charlotte Bronte s death; today it gives us a fascinating insight into the first stirrings of her supreme creative imagination.

Полный, неадаптированный текст произведения. This novel is based on the author's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. It is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude. It is also the story of a woman's right to love and be loved.

The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts — Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother — also stand at odds to society's expectations. The novel is set in a period of social and political ferment, featuring class disenfranchisement, the drama of Luddite machine-breaking, and the divisive effects of the Napoleonic Wars. But Charlotte Bronte’s particular strength lies in exploring the hidden psychological drama of love, loss and the quest for identity. Personal and public agitation are brought together against the dramatic backdrop of her native Yorkshire. As always, Bronte challenges convention, exploring the limitations of social justice whilst telling not one but two love stories.