Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton in Yorkshire, England, the daughter of a clergyman. Her mother died in 1821, so four of the Brontë daughters were sent to a boarding school (which Charlotte portrayed as Lowood school in Jane Evre). Charlotte blamed this school for the early deaths of her two older sisters Maria and Elizabeth, and for her own poor health in later life. 

At home the girls and their brother Branwell read widely, and invented and wrote highly imaginative stories.Charlotte taught as a governess in two private families, 
and then, in her early twenties, went to Brussels to study languages. She fell deeply in love with her French teacher, and suffered greatly when he did not reply to the letters she wrote to him after returning home.Charlotte helped her sisters Emily and Anne to publish their first novels, and began to write Jane Eyre. 

Although this novel was very successful, Charlotte was now living through a tragic period in her personal life. Branwell and Emily died in the same year, 1848, and her remaining sister Anne the following spring. 

In spite of this great emotional loss, and the terrible loneliness which followed, she struggled to continue writing. In 1854, after some hesitation, she agreed