The Key to the Brontë Works / The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane Eyre,' and her other works.

THE KEY TO THE BRONTË WORKS.
THE KEY TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S WUTHERING HEIGHTS, JANE EYRE, AND HER OTHER WORKS.
SHOWING THE METHOD OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND THEIR RELATION TO THE FACTS AND PEOPLE OF HER LIFE.
London and Felling-on-Tyne: THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD. NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE. 1911.
All Rights Reserved.


The Key to the Brontë Works is the absolutely necessary companion volume to Charlotte Brontë's Wuthering Heights , Jane Eyre , Shirley , The Professor , and Villette . Without it the reader cannot know the real Currer Bell and her people, or see her works as they were to herself. Great indeed and continuous has been the task of writing this volume: a comprehension of my duty to law and literature, to posterity and to Charlotte Brontë, set aside any other consideration. It could be no compliment to my learned and distinguished subscribers to assume importance would attach to The Key to the Brontë Works were the volume a mere skimming of extant Brontë biography, albeit that has its province of interest. The Key to the Brontë Works , I repeat, is the only book which shows us the life and works of Charlotte Brontë as intimately known to herself. Herein is my task accomplished; herewith is my reward. To quote my words from a private correspondence with Sir Charles Holroyd, Kt., Director of the National Gallery, London:—
After her return from Brussels in 1844, Charlotte Brontë conceived the idea of perpetuating the drama of her life. Again and again, true artist as she was, she cleared her presentations, till finally the world had those great works which stand as a signal testimony to the high value of the true artist, and as testimony to the divine origin of real inspiration. And now priest, statesman, writer—whatsoever a man may be, he will discover in the works of Charlotte Brontë salutary instruction, and at the same time will perceive with thrilling admiration the greatness of Art when she is at one with Genius. As I pen these lines to you, Sir Charles, I am reminded of the evanescence of the halo of romance round so many historic characters and personages when sober history speaks apart; but Charlotte Brontë we find to be a greater luminary the closer we approach her.