Three lessons from the author of Jane Eyre
Did your story or novel get rejected – by agents, editors, or buyers? Or maybe you wrote something you loved but that your friends, family, or fellow writers didn’t like.
You’re not alone. In fact, the history of literature is littered with stories about rejections.
H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds was rejected for being an “endless nightmare” (which now seems like a compliment), while Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was deemed “fit only for the wastebasket.” Once they found a publisher, those books did just fine.
You may also like to know that Charlotte Brontë and her sisters – writing under male pseudonyms (Charlotte was Currer Bell) – struggled to find success. Of course, today the Brontë sisters are famous for their novels, in particular Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights.
But success didn’t come easy. And when it came, it was because they persisted, refusing to give up.
Charlotte Brontë’s exemplary persistence
The three sisters – Charlotte, Anne, and Emily – weren’t just sisters. They were best friends, and they acted as a writing group, worldbuilding as kids and then later sharing their writings with each other.
They effectively served as workshop partners, providing feedback on each other’s manuscripts and then pursuing publication together. Maybe because they supported each other, they didn’t react to rejections by giving up. In fact, when their poems failed to take off, the lack of success only spurred them on:
“Ill-success [with the poems] failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced ‘Wuthering Heights,’ Acton Bell ‘Agnes Grey,’ and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume. These MSS. were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an ignominious and abrupt dismissal.”
Charlotte, writing as Currer Bell, had submitted The Professor, alongside Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey.
“At last ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey’ were accepted on terms somewhat impoverishing to the two authors; Currer Bell’s book found acceptance nowhere, nor any acknowledgment of merit, so that something like the chill of despair began to invade her heart.”
This adds a layer of difficulty: comparing yourself to your peers. If you have a friend who’s a writer, or you’ve been part of a writing group, and others find an audience for their writing before you do, you might be able to relate to Charlotte’s disappointment. How hard it must’ve been to share Emily and Anne’s joy. I imagine the “chill of despair” was made a little colder by the fact that her sisters had success in finding a publisher.
But Charlotte didn’t give up. She tried one more publishing house. And got another rejection. But this time, the publisher offered constructive feedback and encouragement.
“[The publisher’s letter] discussed [the novel’s] merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done. It was added, that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention.”
I can picture Charlotte grasping this letter, her expression turning from disappointment to elation, as she realizes this is the big opportunity she’d hoped for. The publisher has recognized her talent – if only she can submit another novel.
Luckily, Charlotte, while waiting for responses from publishers on The Professor, had not been idle:
“I was then just completing ‘Jane Eyre,’ at which I had been working while the one-volume tale was plodding its weary round in London: in three weeks I sent it off; friendly and skilful hands took it in.”
We’re fortunate that Charlotte persisted, because Jane Eyre became a sensation, of course, and remains a much-read, much-beloved classic.
Learning from Charlotte’s travails
So what can we learn from this? I see three lessons we can take away from Charlotte Brontë’s story:
- Get help. Join a supportive writing group to get constructive feedback and encouragement for publication.
- Beware of comparing yourself to others. Instead, celebrate your writing friends’ successes, and keep seeking your own.
- Keep writing. As soon as you submit a story or novel, immediately start another – that way, you haven’t put all your hope for success into one project.
Oft a little morning rain foretells a pleasant day
We can only wonder what the three sisters could’ve accomplished if they’d lived longer. Sadly, Emily died at age 30; Anne at age 29; and Charlotte, who lived longest, at 38.
They showed so much talent. But don’t forget that they also worked hard.
It’s remarkable that Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey – their first submissions – were accepted for publication. Charlotte’s experience with The Professor and its many rejections seems more typical.
Here’s the thing, though: Charlotte clearly learned a lot from the rejection of The Professor, developing a much stronger story in Jane Eyre. Later, she even reworked her first novel, turning it into her last, Villette. (The Professor was published after her death)
So, this is a bonus lesson for us: Embrace rejections as being part of the writing life. Often, they can be transformative, helping us grow as writers and craft deeper, more powerful stories.
In other words, sometimes we need bad weather before we can enjoy the sunshine. Or as Charlotte wrote in her poem “Life”:
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
