Better than Wuthering Heights? The Brontës’ novels – ranked!

Charlotte Brontë’s earliest completed novel, The Professor, was rejected nine times and remained unpublished in her lifetime. Written in the voice of a male narrator, William Crimsworth, it follows a downbeat tale of middle-class striving as its protagonist travels to Brussels to establish a teaching career; Charlotte continued to believe it was "as good as I can write," and its subtly ironised male voice reveals her literary sophistication.

Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey draws directly on her experience as a governess, with a first-person heroine who finds herself underpaid and unappreciated while tending tantrum-prone charges, including a boy who pulls the legs off baby sparrows. Charlotte’s Shirley followed Jane Eyre under grim personal circumstances, as family illness and death interrupted its writing; its third-person scope feels diffuse, set against the Luddite riots and exploring social unrest, capitalism and the "woman question," even as Charlotte’s own politics were conservative.

charlotte brontë, anne brontë, the professor, agnes grey, shirley, jane eyre, william crimsworth, governess, luddite riots, brussels