"Yes; and I want you to read it."
"I am afraid it will try my eyes too much."
"But it is not in manuscript; it is printed."
"My dear, you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will be almost sure to be a loss; for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name."
"But, papa, I don't think it will be a loss. No more will you if you will just let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it."
So she sat down and read some of the reviews to her father, and then, giving him the copy of "Jane Eyre" that she intended for him, she left him to read it. When he came in to tea he said: "Girls, do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely?"
Soon the whole reading world of England was in a ferment to discover the unknown author. Even the publishers were ignorant whether "Currer Bell" was a real or an assumed name till a flood of public opinion had lifted the book from obscurity and had laid it high on the everlasting hills of fame.
The authorship was kept a close secret in the Brontë family, and not even the friend who was all but a sister--Ellen Nussey--knew more about it than the rest of the world. It was indeed through an attempt at sharp practice by another firm that Messrs. Smith & Elder became aware of the identity of the author with Miss Brontë. In the June of 1848, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," a second novel by Anne Brontë--"Acton Bell"--was submitted for publication to the firm which had previously published "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," and this firm announced the new book in America as by the author of "Jane Eyre," although Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. had entered into an agreement with an American house for the publication of "Currer Bell's" next tale. On hearing of this, the sisters, Charlotte and Anne, set off instantly for London to prove personally that they were two and not one; and women, not men.
On reaching Mr. Smith's office, Charlotte put his own letter into his hand as an introduction.
"Where did you get this?" said he, as if he could not believe that the two young ladies dressed in black, of slight figures and diminutive stature, looking pleased yet agitated, could be the embodied Currer and Acton Bell for whom curiosity had been hunting so eagerly in vain.