ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the development of Charlotte Brontë’s professional identity as an author, arguing that her involvement in a network of female friends played a crucial role in the creation of the female narrators of her novels, Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853). The letters exchanged between Brontë and her female friends, particularly fellow authors Elizabeth Gaskell and Mary Taylor, offer valuable insights into the importance of female friendship networks in the nineteenth century. Through her correspondence with female friends and colleagues, Brontë gained valuable opportunities to discuss women’s social roles, professional lives, and ambitions, which in turn encouraged her to explore ways for her female protagonists to express themselves, particularly their desires for independence. Examining Brontë’s letters, as well as her fiction, this chapter will show how her feminist ideas were shaped through the channels of a Victorian female friendship network.
