Nom de Plume (3 page)

Though she tried submitting their works for
consideration elsewhere, she had no luck. Finally,
Wuthering Heights
and
Agnes Grey
were
accepted by a minor publisher, Thomas Cautley Newby, but he didn't want
The Professor.
Charlotte sent it to other publishers,
and it was repeatedly rejected. In fact, she would not see the novel published
in her lifetime. It came out in 1857, two years after her death.

Amazingly, the year 1847 would bring publication
for all three sisters, almost at once. Charlotte completed
Jane Eyre
, which she'd written in small square books. As she wrote,
she suffered from an almost unbearably painful toothache and gum disease that
would linger for years. (By 1851, Charlotte had very few teeth left.) But she
persevered, and
Jane Eyre
was accepted with
enthusiasm by the obscure publishing house Smith, Elder and Company in
London.

It wouldn't remain unknown for long; in the latter
half of the century, Smith, Elder became known as the distinguished publisher of
Elizabeth Gaskell, Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, Thackeray, Browning, and
Ruskin. The firm's eventual success could be traced to having taken a chance on
an unknown writer named Currer Bell.

Charlotte submitted the manuscript to her publisher
in August 1847, with a note indicating casually that “[i]t is better in future
to address Mr Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Brontë, Haworth, Bradford,
Yorkshire, as there is a risk of letters otherwise directed not reaching me at
present.” Later, George Smith, the head of the firm, recalled his suspicions
about Currer Bell: “For my own part I never had much doubt on the subject of the
writer's sex; but then I had the advantage over the general public of having the
handwriting of the author before me.”

Published just six weeks later on October 16,
Jane Eyre
, with its declarative opening line—“There
was no possibility of taking a walk that day”—proved shocking to many
Victorians, and even an assault against decorum. Yet it was immediately
recognized as a masterpiece, and could count among its admirers Queen Victoria,
who read it aloud to her “dear Albert.” Thackeray, who'd received an early
review copy, wrote to Charlotte's publisher:

I wish you had not sent me
Jane Eyre.
It interested me so much that I have lost
(or won if you like) a whole day in reading it. . . . Who the author
can be I can't guess, if a woman she knows her language better than most ladies
do, or has had a “classical” education. . . . Some of the love
passages made me cry. . . . I don't know why I tell you this but that
I have been exceedingly moved and pleased by
Jane
Eyre.
It is a woman's writing, but whose?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning thought it a fine novel
(and superior to the subsequent
Shirley
and
Villette
) but wrote to a friend, “I certainly don't
think that the qualities, half savage and half freethinking, expressed in
Jane Eyre
are likely to suit a model governess or
schoolmistress.” Although she found these “qualities” repugnant and expressed
her disapproval, she was excited by the mystery of the authorship—particularly
the scandalous gossip that “Currer Bell” was actually a young governess. Another
critic declared that the novel was “[w]orth fifty Trollopes and Martineaus
rolled into one counterpane, with fifty Dickenses and Bulwers to keep them
company,” but added that the author of
Jane Eyre
was
“rather a brazen Miss.”

Compared with her sisters' novels, Charlotte's
debut achieved by far the greatest commercial and critical success. Sales
exceeded all expectations, and within six months
Jane
Eyre
went into a third printing. Charlotte—or, rather, her nom de
plume—became the most celebrated author in England. Deepening the mystery was
the book's curious title page: “
Jane Eyre: An
Autobiography.
Edited by Currer Bell.” It had been George Smith's
idea to add the provocative subtitle. The novel was very autobiographical
indeed—for Charlotte, that is. Some critics believed that Bell was a woman, but
to others it seemed obvious that the novel was simply too good to have been
written by a female author. “It is no woman's writing,” wrote one reviewer
confidently. “Although ladies have written histories, and travels, and warlike
novels, to say nothing of books upon the different arts and sciences, no woman
could have
penned the ‘Autobiography of Jane
Eyre.' It is all that one of the other sex might invent, and much more.” The
critic George Henry Lewes wrote that the novel was perhaps not autobiographical
“in the naked facts and circumstances,” but it certainly appeared to be “in the
actual suffering and experience.”

Some speculated that perhaps Acton and Currer Bell
were the same person. A baffled critic surmised that the author's identity was
divided, “if we are not misinformed, with a brother and sister. The work bears
the marks of more than one mind and more than one sex.” One writer argued that
the novel's “mistakes” about “preparing game and dessert dishes” proved beyond a
doubt that the author was a man, because no female author would have been so
clueless. But another claimed that “only a woman or an upholsterer” could have
written the section about sewing on brass rings. Yet another reviewer was
convinced that the name was a pseudonym, perhaps an anagram, and that the book
was definitely by a woman from the north of England. “Who, indeed, but a woman
could have ventured, with the smallest prospect of success, to fill three octavo
volumes with the history of a woman's heart?”

As Elizabeth Gaskell wrote in her biography of
Charlotte, following the publication of
Jane Eyre
Charlotte's life became “divided into two parallel currents,” that of Bell and
Brontë, and “there were separate duties belonging to each character—not opposing
each other; not impossible, but difficult to be reconciled.” Gaskell noted
ruefully that when a man becomes an author, “it is probably merely a change of
employment to him,” but for a woman to take on the same role, especially in
secret, the burdens seem too great to overcome. “[N]o other can take up the
quiet, regular duties of the daughter, the wife, or the mother,” Gaskell wrote.
Sequestered at the parsonage, where the most exciting part of her day was the
postman's call, Charlotte was somewhat protected from the pressures of her
fame—but not entirely.

Literary London was buzzing about Currer Bell. Most
agreed that whoever the author was, he or she had extraordinary talent. “This is
not merely a work of great promise,” one critic said, “it is one of absolute
performance. It is one of the most powerful domestic romances which has been
published for many years.” There came an inevitable backlash—among other things,
the novel was said to be coarse and immoral—but those reviews were drowned out
by the praise. (Some critics wanted it both ways:
The
Economist
declared the novel a triumph if written by a man, “odious”
if written by a woman.)

Charlotte could not resist sharing a copy of the
book (along with some laudatory reviews) with her gruff father, who had no idea
that she'd been published. All of Patrick's support, interest, and hope for the
future had been lost with his son. But he read the novel one afternoon, summoned
his daughters to tea, declared the book “a better one than I expected,” and did
not mention it again for the next few years.

Although Charlotte found refuge in her anonymity,
her happiness about the novel's triumphant reception was tempered by the
drubbing that Emily took for
Wuthering Heights. Agnes
Grey
(like poor Anne) did not stir a strong reaction in anyone. Their
novels were published together in December 1847, just as Charlotte was preparing
for the second edition of
Jane Eyre.
Unfortunately,
Emily and Anne found their publisher to have done a shamefully shoddy job; their
books were riddled with mortifying mistakes of spelling and punctuation that
they'd corrected on proof sheets, and new errors had been introduced. Most of
the reviews of
Wuthering Heights
were unkind.
Although critics recognized the power of Ellis Bell's writing, one reviewer
deemed the characters “grotesque, so entirely without art, that they strike us
as proceeding from a mind of limited experience.” And readers were warned that
they would be “disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity and
the most diabolical hate and vengeance” in
Wuthering
Heights.
Emily, always reclusive, did not speak of her pain at
reading the negative reviews; nor did she admit how hurtful it was to see
Charlotte's work bask in adulation at the same time. But after her death it was
discovered that tucked inside her desk, Emily had saved the clippings of the
reviews comparing her novel unfavorably with
Jane
Eyre.

Meanwhile, Charlotte clutched the protective
umbrella of Currer Bell as the storm of publicity raged around her. In a letter
to her editor, she wondered “what author would be without the advantage of being
able to walk invisible?”

For the third edition of
Jane
Eyre
, she wrote a brief author's note “to explain that my claim to
the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the
authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is
awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly
due. This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been
made, and to prevent future errors.” Dated April 13, 1848, it was signed “Currer
Bell.” She'd written it as an irked response to Emily's and Anne's disreputable
publisher, who had led readers to believe that one “Mr. Bell” was responsible
for the works by all three sisters. The Bell brothers were thus accused of
“trickery.” This misrepresentation had brought trouble for Charlotte on a number
of levels, including a need to assure her own publisher, George Smith, that his
author was not working for a competitor behind his back.

That year,
Jane Eyre
was sold in the United States, also to great acclaim, and the New York publisher
Harper & Brothers had eagerly submitted a high bid to acquire the rights to
Currer Bell's next novel.

At home, people were clamoring to know who the
elusive Bell was. Charlotte could not contain her secret much longer;
nevertheless, she wrote to her publisher insisting that the author's identity
remain protected at all costs. “ ‘Currer Bell' only I am and will be to the
Public; if accident or design should deprive me of that name,” she wrote, “I
should deem it a misfortune—a very great one. Mental tranquility would then be
gone; it would be a task to write, a task which I doubt whether I could
continue.”

In July 1848, Charlotte made a dramatic decision:
without giving notice, she traveled to London to introduce herself—her real
self—to Smith and to her editor, W. S. Williams. Deeply grateful for everything
the firm had done for her, she felt obliged to be forthright and to prove that
one author was not responsible for the novels of all three. Originally she'd
planned to surprise Smith at his office accompanied by both Anne and Emily, but
Emily refused to go. She was upset about the turn of events and viewed the
confession as a betrayal. Charlotte felt terribly guilty. Following her visit to
the office she wrote to Williams, asking him to pretend that their meeting had
never happened, at least as far as Emily was concerned.

“Permit me to caution you not to speak of my
sisters when you write to me,” Charlotte advised. “I mean, do not use the word
in the plural. Ellis Bell will not endure to be alluded to under any other
appellation than the
nom de plume.
I committed a
grand error in betraying his identity to you and Mr. Smith. It was
inadvertent—the words ‘we are three sisters' escaped me before I was aware. I
regretted the avowal the moment I had made it; I regret it bitterly now, for I
find it is against every feeling and intention of Ellis Bell.” Even after her
sisters died, she maintained “Currer Bell” as her authorial identity.

Apart from Emily's agitation about the trip, it had
been wonderful in every way. Charlotte and Anne had stayed in Paternoster Row,
in the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral, at the Chapter Coffee House, which had
once been a meeting place for luminaries such as Dr. Johnson—“the resort of all
the booksellers and publishers; and where the literary hacks, the critics, and
even the wits, used to go in search of ideas or employment,” as Elizabeth
Gaskell would describe it in her biography of Charlotte.

The sisters' arrival at the publisher's office was
priceless: when Charlotte showed up, along with Anne, Smith was confused by the
sudden appearance of two “rather quaintly dressed little ladies, pale-faced and
anxious-looking.” (He wasn't joking about the “little” part—at five feet three,
Emily was the tallest of the sisters; Charlotte was a mere four feet nine.) He
was also annoyed because the two strangers—women, at that—had shown up uninvited
on a busy workday demanding to see him. They declined to give their names. “One
of them came forward and presented me with a letter—addressed in my own
handwriting to ‘Currer Bell, Esq.,'” he recalled. “I noticed that the letter had
been opened, and said with some sharpness: ‘Where did you get this from?' ‘From
the post office,' was the reply. ‘It was addressed to me. We have both come that
you might have ocular proof that there are at least two of us.'”