Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is orphaned as a baby. Taken in by a wealthy uncle who adores her she is despised by his wife who, after the death of her husband, eventually sends Jane off to a draconian English boarding school called Lowood. Jane is thoroughly miserable. She has one friend, who dies.

After eight years at the school, Jane comes of age. Now twenty-one and having worked as a teacher at the school for a short time, Jane advertises for a position as governess in a private house and is offered employment at Thornfield Hall in Yorkshire, teaching the French ward of a certain Mr Edward Fairfax Rochester.

Jane is plain and poor, but possessed of honesty, a keen intellect and a strength of character rarely found in the society ladies of the age. For the first time in her life, at Thornfield Hall, Jane feels among equals, and more than that, she feels valued, respected and strangely at home.