內容簡介
★約克郡荒原上最閃亮的三顆文學星星：勃朗特三姊妹★
★甫出版便受到讀者喜愛，改編舞台劇，夏綠蒂‧勃朗特最知名的代表作★
"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you."
這段鏗鏘有力的宣告，想必是所有讀過《簡愛》或看過翻拍電影的讀者，都印象深刻的對白，《簡愛》是夏綠蒂‧勃朗特最知名的小說，出版後在文壇立即掀起討論，普遍給予正面肯定評價，特別是對於女性渴望自由追求愛情與生活的心境，也成為啟蒙後世無數作品的文學經典。
孤女簡愛從小寄住在舅舅家，卻遭受舅母里德夫人和其子的冷漠對待與言語暴力，使她的個性更加忍耐與堅毅，10歲時被送到羅伍德寄宿學校，校長布洛克赫嚴厲且毫無人性的管理方式讓學生備受煎熬，簡愛在惡劣的環境中，所幸在好友海倫的陪伴下她才撐了過來，但海倫不久卻因為肺結核病逝。
簡愛完成學業後成為老師，選擇來到遙遠的桑菲爾德莊園擔任家庭教師，莊園主人羅徹斯特先生是個性格古怪、喜怒無常卻充滿神秘魅力的紳士，收養了一名法國女孩阿黛拉，簡愛慢慢在莊園安定下來，和羅徹斯特先生時常就各種觀念與想法展開辯論與爭吵，卻也在心中對他逐漸產生戀慕之情。
一天，里德夫人忽然告知簡愛自己病危，在臨終前希望與簡愛見面，她向簡愛懺悔過去惡毒的行徑，但簡愛一心只想留在桑菲爾德，加上羅徹斯特先生和她求婚，簡愛看似終於能獲得幸福，但一切卻在羅徹斯特先生隱瞞的祕密被揭穿後全部變調…
夏綠蒂‧勃朗特細膩描繪角色的心境轉折與情感變化，被認為是在小說故事中最早使用私我意識的作家，女主角勇於為自己的心發聲，展現出獨立思考與生存的意志，也成為文學史上具代表性的Icon。
The Norton Library edition of Jane Eyre faithfully reproduces the third (1848) edition, the last corrected by Charlotte Brontë. A new introduction by Sharon Marcus sheds light on the novel’s complex depictions of female agency, drawing fresh appreciation to “the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Brontë” (Virginia Woolf), brought vividly to life through the singular voice of her passionate and uncompromising heroine.
作者介紹
Charlotte Brontë was born at Thornton, Yorkshire in 1816, the third child of Patrick and Maria Brontë. Her father was perpetual curate of Haworth, Yorkshire from 1820 until his death in 1861. Her mother died in 1821, leaving five daughters and a son. Charlotte was employed as a teacher from 1835 to 1838, was subsequently a governess, and in 1842 went with her sister Emily to study languages in Brussels, where during 1843 she again worked as a teacher. Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, was rejected by several publishers and was not published until 1857. Jane Eyre was published in 1847 and achieved immediate success. In 1848 Branwell Brontë died, as did Emily before the end of the same year, and Anne in the following summer, so that Charlotte alone survived of the six children. Charlotte married in 1854 the Revd A. B Nicholls, her father’s curate, but died in March 1855.
Sharon Marcus is the Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Her research and teaching bring together literary theory, cultural and social history, and gender and sexuality studies. A founding editor of the online magazine Public Books, she is the author of many books and articles, including Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London (1999), Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England (2007), and The Drama of Celebrity (2019).
