It is said that Charlotte Bronte owes her fame to her sisters and that she came to prominence only because of her efforts to promote them. I doubt it. Jane Eyre is bland and ordinary compared to Wuthering Heights, but it is still better than most novels of its kind. More recent versions of the Bronte sisters tale—a weird yarn had Emily lived to tell it—was that Charlotte was jealous of her more brilliant sister’s talent and did everything she could to try and suppress it, or diminish it. Still others say the sisters rode to fame on Emily’s tail. These sound better versions of the story, but history is not on their side. All of the sisters were discovered and popularised simultaneously and Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were published in the same year, 1847. Jane Eyre was the more popular immediately—its more direct mystery holding audiences who puzzled over Wuther’s more complex riddles and techniques, and it is only really in this century that the latter has slowly become recognised as one of the ten best novels ever written. But Jane Eyre is okay too, and Charlotte’s handling of the mystery and her gothic descriptive skills were the inspiration for a whole genre of  later novels.
    Obviously, to possess such a volume was way below my dignity. It belonged to Rosely who was growing up into a good looking sheila, much to my horror and surprise. Ever since that painful and troublesome process had begun, her room had been forbidden territory—on pain of tortures and deaths even God and Goldfinger couldn’t have imagined—and therefore the temptation to slip in there when I was alone in the house and explore whatever mysteries it might offer was irresistible. But usually such explorations did not get beyond her books, and by this means, my hand fell upon Jane Eyre.
    Here then was the role model—the creature Rosely was striving to metamorphosis herself into. No wonder the task was proving so tough. Once I started to read, I couldn’t stop, and almost got sprung several times when rushing to get through to the end of the current chapter. There was no chance of removing the book temporarily—she always suspected what was happening and despite the abominable untidiness, would have noticed if a chewing gum wrapper had been moved. So I read on with a far greater air of stealth and suspense than Charlotte had actually aspired to.