A little lesson in Victorian publishing:
“Ours is supposed to be the age of instantaneity, where books can be downloaded in a few seconds and reputations created overnight. But the Victorians could be speedy, too, and there’s no more striking example of instant celebrity than Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë posted the manuscript to Messrs Smith and Elder on 24 August 1847, two weeks after the publisher had expressed an interest in seeing her new novel while turning down her first. Within a fortnight, a deal had been struck (Charlotte was paid £100) and proofs were being worked on. In the 21st century a first novel can wait two years between acceptance and publication. Jane Eyre was out in eight weeks, on 17 October, with Thackeray and Leigh Hunt among its early admirers. By early December, with the first edition shortly to sell out, Charlotte was preparing a preface for the second. By February a stage play based on the book had opened at the Victoria Theatre in London.”
(via The rise and rise of Brontëmania | Books | The Guardian)
he is not to them what he is to me,” i thought: “he is not of their kind. i believe he is of mine; – i am sure he is, – i feel akin to him, – i understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, i have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. […] i must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered: – and yet, while i breathe and think i must love him.” jane eyre
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| — | (via bizziebee) |
Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go, with all that distance between us, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed inwardly.
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| — | Jane Eyre (via awhitney) |
