'Wild, strong hearts, and powerful minds, were hidden under an enforced propriety and regularity of demeanour' Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her close friend Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim, and remains the most significant study of the enigmatic author who gave Jane Eyre the subtitle 'An Autobiography'. It recounts Charlotte Brontë's life from her isolated childhood, through her years as a writer who had 'foreseen the single life' for herself, to her marriage at thirty-eight and death less than a year later. The resulting work--the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist--explored the nature of Charlotte's genius and almost single-handedly created the Brontë myth. Elisabeth Jay's introduction discusses Gaskell's artistic construction of The Life and its lasting influence. The text follows the controversial first edition of 1857 throughout, and all the variations of the revised third edition are contained in an appendix. 'It will stand in the first rank, of Biographies, till the end of time'--Patrick Brontë 'A classic in its own right, still read today as one of the great works of Victorian literature'--Lucasta Miller Edited with an introduction and notes by Elisabeth Jay