Sound familiar? I'm sure you've heard it quoted. It's the most famous line from Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's most famous book. Jane Eyre has been the source material for countless movies and novels. My favorite historical novelist, Georgette Heyer, used Mr. Rochester as the prototype of her brooding, dark heroes. Heyer acknowledged the genius of Bronte in leaving much of his description to our imagination, sketching only a rough outline of a swarthy, unhandsome, intelligent male seething with emotions barely contained. Who could resist, then or now? There resides in most women an urge to tame the wildness of a man, and Bronte knew well the lure of the rough diamond.

If you've never read the book, Classics in 3 to 4 Paragraphs to the rescue!

JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte (published 1847)

Jane Eyre, a hot-tempered, rather sensitive orphan living with her unloving aunt and loutish cousins, is sent to Lowood School as a permanent boarder when her aunt tires of her. Lowood is run badly by Rev. Brocklehurst who is hypocritical and pompous, allowing the children to starve and freeze while his own family lives fashionably. Jane is befriended by Helen Burns, an older student who is nauseatingly good even though she is persecuted by some of the teachers. Eventually Helen dies of consumption, the rest of the school comes down with fevers, and an investigation is launched which results in the improvement of Lowood. Jane is invited to stay on as a teacher after she graduates but opts to hire out as a governess. She answers an advertisement and goes to live at Thornfield as governess to young Adele.

Thornfield's master is the saturnine and rough mannered Edward Rochester with whom Jane immediately feels a powerful affinity. Rochester is abrupt, autocratic, and enigmatic. There is something strange about Thornfield. One night she discovers his room has been set afire; after they put out the fire he instructs her to keep quiet about it. She hears eerie laughter at odd hours and is told it is Grace Poole, a servant who mysteriously spends most of her days in the locked portion of the top floor of the stone mansion. Meanwhile, Jane finds herself falling in love with her master. She suffers much heartache at the arrival of the Hon. Blanche Ingram, a local beauty who is expected by one and all to marry Rochester. Jane feels the futility of competing with wealth and beauty since she is plain and a dependent, existing in the twilight zone reserved for upper servants: too genteel to mingle socially with housemaids and gardeners but nonetheless hired help.

Matters come to a crisis and Jane and Rochester declare their love. At the alter, when the minister asks if anyone knows of any impediments to the marriage, Rochester's brother-in-law steps forward. The secret is out: Rochester's wife is mad and living on the top floor of Thornfield. Jane is devastated and runs away. She takes a coach as far as her money allows and is let out at a crossroads on the moors. She wanders, starving and destitute, for two days and finally finds shelter at a cottage where two sisters take her in. She gives them a phony name when they question her on her background. Diana and Mary have a brother, St. John Rivers, an austere and cold-mannered parson who is nonetheless handsome and young. Jane develops a warm relationship with the sisters and becomes part of the family.

They discover that Jane Elliot is really Jane Eyre, their long lost cousin and now heir to 20,000 pounds. She insists on splitting the inheritance with them. St. John's true love marries someone else so he decides Jane would make an ideal wife for a missionary and asks her to marry him. She refuses. He is cranky about it and reads aloud passages from the Bible about hell at every opportunity. One day Jane hears Rochester calling her name three times in the wind. She makes a hurried trip to Thornfield and finds it burnt up and unoccupied since the mad wife escaped and set the place on fire and then leaped to her death from the roof. Rochester is blind and living down the road. Jane and her master are united at last.

The wonderful thing about this novel is how sensitively Bronte portrays the young Jane. You'll recall your own tempestuous childhood emotions, and the frustrations of dealing with grownups who don't care about your point of view. I still reread this every two or three years, and I still think St. John is the biggest prig in English Literature. I always cheer when she turns him down.

By the way, feel free to recommend your favorite books to me. I'm always looking for something good to read.