Jane Eyre

Orphaned and unloved, Jane Eyre grows up under a cruel aunt and a bleak charity school before taking a post as governess at Thornfield Hall. There she falls for her employer, the brooding Mr Rochester, only to learn on their wedding day the terrible secret locked in his attic. Rather than betray her conscience, she flees with nothing and must find her own way back to love on equal terms. Charlotte Bronte published the novel in 1847 under a male pen name, and it startled readers by insisting, through Jane’s fierce first-person voice, that a plain and penniless woman held as much soul and moral worth as anyone born above her. It endures as one of literature’s great stories of integrity, passion, and a woman’s fight for independence. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.