Book Description

When Charlotte began writing, the heroes and heroines of the novels prepared for young ladies and gentlemen were ideally perfect. The approach of the heroine was announced by the rustling of voluminous muslin, whose quality was described as the whitest and finest. When she came tripping in sandals, long ringlets were seen falling over a drooping head and a swan neck, and she was declared tender, soft, languishing, and innocent. The hero was the pink of kindness and graciousness; and when, after three volumes of courtship, he won a reluctant bride, he was told to be never cross or wayward with her. The best novels of this species - a lingering on of the Sir Charles Grandison tradition - were those written by Mrs. Anne Marsh Caldwell. Even Emily and Anne Brontë were careful to keep their heroines beautiful, in Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights though to no such extreme. Charlotte told Emily and Anne that they were ‘morally wrong’ in adopting the conventional heroine, and said to them, ‘I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.’[1] [1] Charlotte Brontë’s letter quoted in W. L. Cross, The Development of the English Novel, (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd: 1899 rpt. 1964), p. 228.