[BRONTE, Charlotte]. BELL, Currer. Jane Eyre, ou, Mémoires d’une gouvernante.

(Paris): Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, 1855.  First French edition.  Paperback 18cm.  [2] leaves, 183, [1] pages.

Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall. The novel revolutionised prose fiction, being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the “first historian of the private consciousness” and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce.  A very good copy, in original printed yellow wrappers.  Rolled at spine, some light foxing, stamp of the Ministere de L’Interieur to half-title.  Still a presentable copy of the first French edition of this classic novel.