Jane Eyre

《简爱》常被当作一部爱情小说来读，但真正让无数读者反复重读的，是它在炽热情感之下那份近乎执拗的「不低头」。盖茨德堡的愤怒、洛伍德学校的隐忍、桑菲尔德的相守与逃离，串联起的并非一段浪漫传奇，而是一个孤女如何在被轻视、被忽视的处境里，一寸寸守住自己的尊严与判断。那句「我的灵魂和你一样」之所以振聋发聩，正因为它不是爱情的附赠，而是人格的自证——即便穷、低微、不美、矮小，也依然有权要求平等。它适合这样一些人：不愿用牺牲自我换取被爱，怀疑「有爱不够」，并相信原则与道德不该被浓烈感情轻易覆盖的人。当然，也有人嫌它闷、嫌它「琼瑶」，少年时读或许更觉畅快；但正是这份不妥协的「单身力」，让它超越时代，成为女性必读书之一。

Charlotte Brontë ( 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels have become classics of English literature. She enlisted in school at Roe Head in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839 she undertook the role as governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth where the sisters opened a school, but failed to attract any students. Instead they turned to writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Her first novel The Professor was rejected by publishers, her second novel Jane Eyre was published in 1847, although it was not initially well received; one critic described it as a "pre-eminently an anti-Christian composition". The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles. Brontë experienced the early deaths of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her marriage in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855 of tuberculosis or possibly typhus.