Charlotte Bronte's Juvenilia: Precursors of

The novels ofCharlotte Bronte were not her first attempt at writing, as she acknowledges in her preface to what is ostensibly her first novel, The Professor: "A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn down a good deal in a practice of some years."l Indeed, Charlotte's major novels come after a long apprenticeship provided by her juvenilia- an apprenticeship that lasted ten years. A study of Charlotte Bronte's juvenilia reveals an author in the process of becoming Currer Bell, the author ofher masterpiece, Jane Eyre. Clearly, Charlotte's early work can be related to her later development as a writer and to her mature works. Although Charlotte's early work, which consists ofpoems and short stories, is the naive and faulty work ofa child, threads found in the juvenilia can also be found woven into her later novels. In this thesis, I should like to demonstrate that within selected stories ofCharlotte Bronte's juvenilia, one can find strong precursors ofJane Eyre's characters, incidents, and themes