Charlotte Brontë's fame and influence rest on a very slender canon of published works: only four novels and some contributions to a volume of poetry. Her reputation may be explained in part by the astounding success of her first novel, Jane Eyre (1847); it owes much also to the romantic appeal of her personal history, given prominence soon after her death by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell's excellent biography, a work preeminent in its genre. Of greater importance, perhaps, is the recognition by historians of fiction that Charlotte Brontë's work made a significant contribution to the development of the novel; her explorations of emotional repression and the feminine psyche introduced a new depth and intensity to the study of character and motive in fiction, anticipating in some respects the work of such writers as George Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. Her strength as a novelist lies in her ability to portray in moving detail the inner struggles of women who are endowed with a powerful capacity for feeling, yet whose social circumstances deny them the opportunity for intellectual or emotional fulfillment.
