Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!" From a tragic childhood when she is abused physically and emotionally by her inhuman Aunt Reed to a youth when she falls in love with Edward Rochester-- her Byronic employer at Thornfield where she works as a governess-- only to learn on their wedding day about his lunatic wife, the passionate and principled Jane Eyre endures many hardships and oppressions. And after she leaves Thornfield, reduced to destitution, the Rivers family becomes her benefactor. What happens when St. John Rivers, her cold clergyman-cousin, proposes to her? Will she accept his proposal or return to Rochester? Presented in a classic leather-bound edition with beautiful endpapers, Charlotte Brontė 's Jane Eyre has been addressed to ' the reader' . It became a sensation shortly after its publication. A bildungsroman, it follows and explores the emotions of the eponymous character while deftly stitching the motifs from Gothic fiction with romanticism to create an exceptional Victorian novel. Adapted into various art forms, this masterpiece continues to dazzle its readers."