There's just something about Jane Eyre, and, like many beloved novels, it can be difficult to find other titles that offer the same reading experience. But, thanks to the enduring influence and appeal of the Brontë sisters, there are plenty of books for Jane Eyre lovers to relish.
Now, nearly 200 years after Charlotte Brontë was born, readers the world over continue to enjoy her most famous novel. Sisters Emily and Anne have joined her in the literary canon, with Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
The Brontës have an unmistakable allure. After losing their mother in childhood, the writer trio and their artistic brother, Branwell, lost their two eldest siblings, Maria and Elizabeth, to tuberculosis. The four surviving children would all eventually succumb to the same illness, beginning with Branwell in 1848. Charlotte lived the longest, and died in 1855, one year after her marriage to Arthur Bell Nichols.
The tragedy that befell the Brontë family, combined with the sisters' flair for the Gothic, created a near-mythos that continues to enchant readers into the 21st century. If you've been so enthralled, check out the 17 books for Jane Eyre lovers listed below to get your next reading fix.
1. Re Jane by Patricia Park
Korean-American Jane Re leaves her uncle's grocery store to work as an au pair for the adopted daughter of Brooklyn English professors. When a death in the family draws Jane back to Seoul, she has time and space to consider her future with her intriguing employer.
2. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys' 1966 prequel to Jane Eyre centers on Antoinette Cosway, a young Jamaican heiress who finds herself locked in an unhappy marriage with an English landowner, who insists on calling her "Bertha."
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
When a young bride moves into her widower husband's estate, she finds everything haunted by the ghost of his first wife, Rebecca.
4. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper centers on a sickly woman whose husband confines her upstairs in a country house to recuperate. It soon becomes apparent, however, that she is not alone in the room...
5. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Set in an alternate 1985, The Eyre Affair follows a literary detective who chases time-travelling manuscript thieves through history.
6. The Brontë Plot by Katherine Reay
Hired as a consultant by her ex-boyfriend's grandmother, a rare book dealer finds the strength and courage to sort out her problems when she comes to Haworth: the Brontës' historic home.
7. Reader, I Married Him , Edited by Tracy Chevalier
Girl with a Pearl Earring author Tracy Chevalier edits this collection of Jane Eyre-inspired short stories from Patricia Park, Emma Donoghue, Audrey Niffenegger, and Elizabeth McCracken, among others.
8. The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
After her father's death, Samantha Whipple embarks on a quest to find the legacy she inherited: the collected writings and artwork of the Brontës.
9. Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
Lyndsay Faye's eponymous heroine murdered the schoolmasters who made her life miserable. Then she disappeared. Now her late aunt's second husband, Mr. Thornfield, needs a governess, and the job might be just the thing to help her create a life off the run.
10. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Abandoned on a ship with only a few possessions, Nell is adopted by an Australian dockmaster and his wife. When she comes of age, her parents reveal what they know of her past, setting her on the path that leads to a Cornish manor, where her secrets may lie.
11. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Catherine Morland reads a lot of Gothic novels. After a visit to Bath to find a mate, she finds herself invited to Northanger Abbey: the childhood home of her prospective love interest, Henry Tilney. But Henry's father gives her the willies, and she suspects he may have imprisoned his late wife in the rooms no one is allowed to enter.
12. Beloved by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison's famous ghost story centers on Sethe, a former slave who smothered her own child in her bid for freedom. Years later, the revenant that has haunted Sethe's home for years takes physical form as a young woman who shows up on the mother's doorstep, and calls herself "Beloved."
13. Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley
In Lena Coakley's novel, the Brontë siblings bring the fantastic worlds of Gondal and Verdopolis to life with their pens, providing an escape from the banalities of everyday life. But when Branwell's mind begins to slip, his sisters must reconsider their relationship with the lands they have created.
14. Maplecroft by Cherie Priest
Lizzie Borden didn't murder her family. After the trial, she and her sister use their inheritance to buy Maplecroft, an estate by the sea. But the dark forces that consumed the Borden parents refuse to die...
15. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
The title story in Angela Carter's collection of twisted fairytales is a violent, bloody, feminist take on the legend of Bluebeard.
16. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
In Henry James' Gothic novel, a new governess becomes convinced that her charges are conspiring with the ghosts of their former caretakers, who now haunt the grounds of their country home.
17. White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
After her mother dies, Miranda Silver becomes the next woman in her family to be plagued by a mysterious ailment, which manifests itself as an insatiable form of pica.
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