Brontë, Charlotte (1816 - 1855) | Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
E. P. WHIPPLE (ESSAY DATE OCTOBER 1848)
SOURCE: Whipple, E. P. "Novels of the Season." The North American Review 67, no. 141 (October 1848): 354-70.
In the following excerpt from a review of Jane Eyre, Whipple presumes the novel was written largely by Patrick Branwell Brontë—due to the novel's "masculine tone"—with additional material supplied by the Brontë sisters. Whipple also asserts that the Brontës' portrayal of the darker side of humanity is not representative of most people, but rather of "a sense of the depravity of human nature peculiarly their own."
Not many months ago, the New England States were visited by a distressing mental epidemic, passing under the name of the "Jane Eyre fever," which defied all the usual nostrums of the established doctors of criticism. Its effects varied with different constitutions, in some producing a soft ethical...
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