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Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Audiobook17 hours

Jane Eyre

Written by Charlotte Brontë

Narrated by Wanda McCaddon

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

This classic story shows how a young woman can overcome adversity and find true happiness. It is a story of passionate love, travail, and final triumph.

Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre leads a lonely life until she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who roams the halls by night. The relationship between the heroine and Mr. Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art. In this work, the plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance but possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit, and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer, and the rigid social order that circumscribes her life and position.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 15, 2008
ISBN9781400176359
Author

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë, born in 1816, was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, and one of the nineteenth century's greatest novelists. She is the author of Villette, The Professor, several collections of poetry, and Jane Eyre, one of English literature's most beloved classics. She died in 1855.

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Reviews for Jane Eyre

Rating: 4.391402714932127 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

442 ratings408 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Only six months on from my first reading (has it only been that?), and yet it feels like a lifetime in turmoil and heartache. I saw Jane and Rochester as "codependent", a little; I saw them as each other's support; I saw them as flawed and human and needy and illuminated by each other. Now, I feel like I understand so much more intimately what is going on between them, what is going on inside each of them, and it's almost too much to bear. I truly think Jane Eyre must be the greatest, and surely the first, depiction of a certain kind of broken relationship--two people crippling one another to the point where neither can run away, so they'll be safe, so they'll never be abandoned. We're all born to hurt, and to hurt others, but some of us never learn to put up an inhuman shell and get on with it, like Mrs. Reed, like St. John Rivers. Some of us just cling to each other with our broken wings.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. Despite the fact it was written in the 1800's I found it was very easy to read and understand when compared to say Dickens or other writers of that period. It is mainly a love story but it is also a mystery. The main characther Jane Eyre has had an unhappy and difficult childhood. She becomes a governess and goes to live at a large country house. She starts to develop feelings for her boss the Earl of Rochester who seems to feel affection for her but there are obstacles in the way. The difference in age and class and also dark secrets from his past could prevent them from being together. I really enjoyed this book although I did have a few problems with it due to the attitudes at the time it was written there is some (perhaps not entirely obvious)racism. The portrait she paints of a mixed race woman is not exactly flattering but typical of the period (the jewish charachter Fagan in Oliver Twist). Apart from that I really enjoyed it and thought it was extremely well written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Best of the Bronte sisters if you ask me. This books kicks Wuthering Heights fanny any day of the week. Period.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    SPOILER ALERTI’ve known the broad outline of Jane Eyre’s plot for a long time, of course, but that never made me want to read the book. Tragic orphan, cruel boarding school, fiercely brooding Rochester, mad wife in the attic, etc, etc. It all sounded overblown, almost ridiculously gloomy, and far too melodramatic for my taste. Then I read the book and, WOW, after (for me) a slow start it wasn’t what I anticipated at all. I did not expect the wonderful relationship between Rochester and Jane, with mutual respect and lots of playful, witty banter. I did not expect the harrowing terror I felt when Jane flees Rochester’s house after the big reveal, on her own and without resources. But the biggest difference between my anticipation and reality is that I in no way expected that what would really make the book for me is Jane herself. To say she is spunky is not right, but she is smart, lively, principled, and determined. Her first person narration lays open her heart in a way that captured my mine, and her life journey moved me more than I would ever have guessed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really prefer the writings of the Bronte family to all other literature of that period. Their books have much more of a plot, and the characters are more layered and appealing than those of Austen. In this book we chart the story of Jane Eyre, and orphan who becomes a governess to Mr Rochester, a dark and brooding man, with a secret. It is wonderfully written, and a joy to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well. It was certainly a lot more accessible than I thought it would be. It was more a novel for pleasure, less a classic of the canon. Still, I wouldn't necessarily think most people Jane's age, nowadays, would get it. At age 48, I enjoyed it. I do take off 1/2 star for melodrama & implausibility. And I do take off 1/2 star for the doctrine that if one does one's best to obey God one will be rewarded in the hereafter. I mean, I know lots of people believe that stuff, but I do not, and I cannot enjoy being preached at. Still, the fact that Jane must try so hard to be obedient to God, and yet we see that she remains fully in control of her obedience to Man, makes for entertaining reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hailed as one of the biggest romances ever written 'Jane Eyre' is certainly that, and so much more. In truth to call it simply a romance is to do it a disservice. Brontë takes all the big genre's of the 19th century novel; Romance, Gothic Fiction, Coming-of-Age, and Autobiography and throws them all into one big melting pot, and boy does she do it well.While a romance it may be, it is also packed with drama, mystery, suspense and above all a critique of both the social class system and gender inequality.In college a fellow student said that he felt that Jane Eyre as a character lacked depth and was the complete opposite of a feminist, let me tell you the polite, quiet and all round shy personality which I had owned for 20 years suddenly left. I took a page from Jane Eyre's book and stood up for myself (and her.) Jane Eyre is not a perfect character, she's far from it...that is the very thing that makes her so excellent, she's flawed, as are we. It's this very thing that makes her a three dimensional character.She's also the type of character who will stand for what she believes in, in what she feels is the 'right' thing to do. She does so even if it goes against everything society deems acceptable. A woman who will stand her ground against society and against the man she loves makes her a strong female lead in my opinion. The fact that this was written in the 19th century. The 19th century when women were so oppressed that most female writers who wrote about more than just sewing or domestic affairs wrote under pseudonyms (Charlotte Brontë used Currer Bell as hers.)That's not to say that this is a feminist tirade, because in truth it's more about the importance of being true to yourself above all, regardless of your gender. It's about growing up and the difficulty of the human condition. Life is filled with sadness, oppression and regret, along the way we face a lot of challenges and we have to make a lot of decisions Jane teaches us that it's best to make decisions that you truly believe in because after all its us who must live with them, good or bad they are ours to make, nobody else's.It's a novel that is sure to have everything you need, and these beautifully flawed characters draw you in and linger in your mind well after the cover has been closed.Poignant and alluring, after all it's a classic for a reason.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Jane Eyre, like most classics, is difficult to review. There are many wonderful elements, morals and ideas embedded in the story which make it a timeless classic. However, people who want to learn about these themes and elements I'm sure know where to go. For my review, I will be judging the book mostly from a perspective of a modern reader looking for enjoyment in a novel (rather than enlightenment).I do love this story. It starts dramatic, with Jane Eyre a young and abused child. This gothic novel provides numerous heart-wrenching trials for Jane Eyre. Her life contains difficulty after difficulty. But she remains a strong woman who does not compromise her morals for anything or anyone in hopes of an easy way out, or in hopes of pleasing the higher-class members. Although inferior to most the people she interacts with, she relies on her independence and speaks her mind even at times when it isn't in her position.This is definitely a romantic novel. Not romantic in modern terms. This novel, although does center a great deal about the love between Jane and Mr. Rodchester, does not contain a lot of romance as romance is in modern terms. It is romantic in literary terms because Jane Eyre is a passionate woman with strong feelings. She does not listen to society and follow the conventional rules that are set before her. During her time at Lowood, she was secure with a future she could enjoy. It didn't take her long to feel a little bored with her mundane surroundings (who never does?). Yet, she doesn't ignore these feelings as most people would. She follows her passion for a new environment. Not long afterwords, after settling down, she walks out on her life with hardly anything on her back because of an immediate feeling of dependency that had overcome her. She does have rational thoughts, and she tries to reason everything that occurs in her life. However, she almost always follows her feelings.So she left without taking a single gift among many that had been given to her. She sought independence, and nearly starved herself on the journey because of it. A strong woman, indeed.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Better than I thought but still very drawn out and boring.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love this book because I am a bit of a romantic and it is a fabulous love story about two people from completely different worlds.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I don't understand why this book is considered to be a classic-- not at all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    is surprisingly modern in its language, themes, and story. For many people I suspect it's all about Jane and Mr. Rochester (one of the original templates for the brooding emotionally unavailable hero in romance novels - more on that in a sec). For me it's all about Jane. The romance is a side-plot (and kind of a predictable boring one at that), but Jane and her interior and exterior journey is what makes this book a pleasure for me.I felt such a connection with Jane - the smart, different, unloved little girl trying to grow up into better circumstances. Much of her story resonates with me, the party scenes perhaps most of all as she sits in her chair in the corner trying to hide behind a curtain. I like her defiance and her willingness to pay the price for it (because sometimes the defiance is worth every penny of the price). Her intellect and curiousity appeal as does her attempt to balance her religious ideals against the real and beautiful world. This is an ongoing struggle for society as we attempt to figure out where we are in relationship to nature and natural things when much is mediated through religion, politics, societal conventions, and technology.I liked Mr. Rochester for similar reasons. Both he and Jane seem to me to be outsiders in their own ways and to reject the conventional behavior of the time, although both are strongly bound to them. Of course they fell in love! That's what kindred spirits do if they're lucky enough to meet. As I said earlier, Mr. Rochester is a whole host of unattractive behaviors, but they're complicated and tied up into a character with a tragic past, a mad wife in the attic, and a level of despair that I also understand. In later romance novels it is much less about the complexities of the unattractive behaviors, but rather the practice of them and the acceptance of them.If you've never read this, or haven't in a long time, I recommend you do. It's a wonderful read, light in its own way, but filled with depth and many things that will make you think. I enjoyed the read very much.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The highest praise for a book is when you turn the last page and immediately want to go back and read it again. Jane Eyre was that sort of book for me. It's not a large volume, I imagine few books published back then were, but it has everything that I enjoy: it has a strong, intelligent heroine who's not afraid to speak her mind, adventure, romance, mystery and a happy ending. It is written in such a way that wherever the heroine is you feel like you're right there with her, experiencing what she is experiencing, the plot developments are never contrived and flow naturally and the ending, while happy, isn't so happy that it seems unrealistic and fake. It is my all-time favourite book and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes an unhurried narrative without gratuitous drama and enjoys historical fiction.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was decidedly underwhelmed by this book. I am a big fan of Jane Austen and other 19th century lit, but this book just bored me to tears. There were days I couldn't read more than ten pages before I fell asleep...in the middle of the day. I felt like I was in church, being preached to (with a sermon completely impossible to understand)...for weeks and weeks and weeks. Dear God, I'm glad I'm done with this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It isn't every book that speaks to both the Wild Romantic and the Stern Puritan in me, and since the day I first read Jane Eyre - up in the woods of Michigan, the summer I was twelve - I have revisited it often, and always with pleasure. It is a book that speaks in many tongues, to many people, and presents many faces to the world, all worth exploring... Depending on who you speak to, this is the best and truest love story ever written - a narrative of the suffering and endurance of true love; a commentary on the social and economic subjugation of women in 19th-century England; or an oblique exploration of race and empire. It is all of these things, of course, but for me, the power of Jane Eyre stems from its keenly observed and acutely realized portrait of the conflict between duty and desire.From the very first line, when a hidden Jane looks out onto a rain-soaked world, I entered wholly into the psyche of this character. Her desire to love and be loved, so cruelly denied in her childhood, seemed as piercingly real to me as anything I had ever felt in my own life. Lonely Jane, for all the Gothic trappings that surround her, could be the poster child for that "transcendental homelessness" of which Lukács speaks...So it is, when Jane seems to find a home with Rochester, whose "bad-boy" persona would make any schoolgirl's heart flutter, I could enter with abandon into the almost ecstatic joy of her homecoming, her communion with another soul. Lonely Jane no more...And when Jane discovers the duplicity of her lover, and the insurmountable ethical obstacles to her happiness, her stern devotion to duty, her almost-desperate recourse to principle, permit her a tremendous (but costly) moral victory. To this day, I cannot read the scenes in which Jane must tear herself away from Rochester, or the following passage, without getting chills:Still indomitable was the reply--"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."After many travails, Jane does find her happy ending (thank goodness), and having triumphed over her own heart, she is rewarded with her heart's desire. But that conflict, between the desire to be happy and the need to do right, is what gives Jane Eyre its peculiar power. It is Jane herself who is the masterpiece.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    i'm exactly halfway through for the first time in probably 20 years. This is my most re-read book, and although I think I know the story, two things keep me trudging along -- little scenes that I do not remember and the deliciousness of the prose. the only writer that is anywhere as delicious today is john irving, and side by side with dickens and the brontes, he would barely pass. Now finished, and it still is wonderful! I know we all have opinions and we are all different, but how can any English speaking person NOT LIKE this, simply for the deliciousness of the prose?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Jane Eyre tell the story of a young woman in mid 19th century England, however, any girl/woman who has ever felt out of place and alone can relate to Jane. Yes, it is a story of love, but also a story of a strong female character who, despite all, stays true to herself and her beliefs. She suffers for them, but in the end it all works out (which probably is why it makes it endearing)...so if you've ever felt out of place, "not normal", but wanting to love someone, to feel love returned, then this book is for you.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Jane Eure is a good book but it has never been one of my favorite classics. Just "inherited" this book from my grandmother who died last week and of coruse I will keep it but not sure if I want to read it although I've never read it in English. Maybe because of having watched to many TV series of this book?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I don't normally review classics, but here goes.

    Here in the US, I'm fairly sure the works of the Bronte sisters are commonly dubbed as required reading alongside other classics, and for this reason are unjustly spared with naught but a single glance by young adult readers.

    After being recommended this novel several times, I decided to give it a try. It hadn't yet been assigned for my English class as of yet, thankfully, so I was able to read the novel without outside force or the fright of a looming reading test. I read it at my own pace, with no pressure whatsoever.

    And you know what? I'm so glad I caught the book before it was assigned for school. I was able to drown in the beauty of Charlotte Bronte's writing and gain the acquaintance of the wonderful protagonist, Jane Eyre (who is, ahem, my bestie). I swooned at Mr. Rochester and highlighted passages (something I NEVER do) and stayed up through the night discreetly turning the pages.

    Some may complain of the pages upon pages of descriptions. I didn't love it - I adored it. Bronte's writing style is unbeatable in so many ways and kept me enthralled when the plot meandered.

    I have found a favorite novel. Words cannot do this novel justice - and I say this without caring whether or not it is cliched because it is so utterly true.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This classic was the first that I read of it's kind. It has left a lasting impression on me. Loved it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Was not really expecting to enjoy this but I could not put it down, one of the best books I have ever read! The old adage is true, don't judge a book by its cover!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In this timeless love story, logic and passion compete in Jane's mind and heart as she grows from an orphan into a woman who must treat her prospects carefully. No matter your age or station, it is easy to sympathize with Jane Eyre and feel the twists and turns of her love story yourself.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good, but not as good as her sister's novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I wonder how different my life would have been if I'd read Jane Eyre in highschool? I turned up my nose at this "girl's classic" and consequently didn't meet the aspects of my personality that were reflected in Jane Eyre's aloofness and Rochester's lack of social graces, standing in the way of romance. I was too proud by far and too expectant of destiny by half, showcasing all the faults of both major characters. Unlike Jane, I didn't come to my senses until much later. More young men should be encouraged (and by 'encouraged' I mean 'forced') to read and absorb this stuff.I reluctantly watched the 2011 movie last year at my wife's bidding, and it’s a good thing I did. It was the best movie of the year, imo. No reluctance prevented me reading the novel and indulging in every detail the movie couldn't incorporate. The fortune teller scene is a bit of brilliance, a perfect example of something that lights up the page but would do nothing for the screen. It features a haunting quote: to paraphrase, "all the pieces for happiness are there, only parted a little by happenstance. It takes only the slightest effort to unite them." How many regrets about the past did that instantly bring to mind? Happily all turned out well for me in the end, as it does for Jane. She was far better and faster at nudging those pieces together, compared to which I could fault myself. Then again, she did have the help of that mysteriously disembodied voice calling her. Maybe that's what I was waiting for.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A fine, literate novel, straightahead, marred perhaps by a few coincidences, but ironic in its first-person narrative, nicely phrased, peopled with interesting and memorably delineated characters. Quote: ”Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.“
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An all-time favorite to be read over and over again. A dramatic plot, a virtuous, intelligent woman, a mentally tortured master, a dark mystery--all contribute to the making of a long popular classic. Great mastery of the English language.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best 19th century novels ever written. A basic class-struggle romance with an unusual twist of mystery and secrecy create a passionate, enthralling story that is impossible to put down.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love love Jane Eyre and I'm so excited of adding this edition in my library (collection).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An orphan suffers through Gothic beatings, meets the love of her life, loses him (because she can't run away with and live with a married man), suffers some more and then finds him again. She endures. Is it any wonder this book still sells?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Really enjoyed this, the best classic I've read in a long time. Charlotte's character development and imagery is much more to my liking than her sister Emily's utterly dislikeable Cathy and Heathcliff.