An enchanting, historically grounded, literary debut inspired by a critical year in the life of Charlotte Brontë and the writing of Jane Eyre.

1846 is no time for a woman to pursue her dream of being a novelist. A responsible young woman ought to pack away her ambition and follow society’s expectations. But Charlotte Brontë is no ordinary woman.

Drawing on Charlotte’s letters and the rich, strange world of a village parsonage—three brilliant sisters, a dissolute brother, and an ailing father—Elizabeth Ferris’s Charlotte imagines the emotional depths beneath the placid exterior of a country spinster and examines the cost of insisting, against all obstacles, that her inner life is worth something.