‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?’ Jane Eyre asks Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s most famous novel. What is true of Brontë’s heroine is equally true of her Yorkshire home: plain in every sense of the word and yet perennially mysterious.
The muted colour palette of the house reflect the rain-soaked moors surrounding it in a pleasing way. Tucked up a cobbled lane behind Haworth’s church, you would easily pass by without stopping to notice it, were you not aware of its former inhabitants.
Much like Jane, Charlotte Brontë believed herself to be physically unremarkable. Even after the success of Jane Eyre, she struggled to make a strong impression in social situations. William Thackeray’s daughter cruelly remarked after their first meeting that ‘everyone waited for the brilliant conversation, which never began at all’.
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