The Open University | Study at the OU | About the OU | Research at the OU | Search the OU Listen to this page | Accessibility
From Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte: '"I recollect [...] [Bronte's] saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of plagiarism when, after she had written "Jane Eyre," she read the thrilling effect of the mysterious scream at midnight in Mrs Marsh's story of "The Deformed." She also said that, when she read "The Neighbours," she thought every one would fancy that she must have taken her conception of Jane Eyre's character from that of "Francesca," the narrator of Miss Bremer's story. For my own part, I cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two characters"'.
'I think Anne's 'Tales' particularly interesting ... I prefer the first, there is greater purity and far greater truth. 'The Admiral's Daughter' is deficient in both these qualities...'