The Life of Charlotte Bronte

The Life of Charlotte Brontë is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. The first edition was published in 1857, and a major source of the text was the hundreds of letters sent by Brontë to her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey. Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlottes love for Constantin Héger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to contemporary morals and a possible source of distress to Charlottes still-living friends and family. She also suppressed any reference to Charlottes romance with George Smith, her publisher, who was also publishing the biography.