Publisher, Blackstone Audio (January 2011)

NOTE: RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard, jewel-case or DVD shrink-wrapped cases, with full-color art.

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Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award

“What a joy to hear a favorite classic performed with excellence! Nadia May's skill as a storyteller has the listener soon believing Jane Eyre is speaking directly to him or her, 'the gentle reader.' The story of Jane, orphan governess, and her tragic love, Mr. Rochester, has the same plot as many of today's romances, but Brontë's masterful use of language and description moves it to a higher plane. Her portrayal of the social milieu of the times and Jane's view of realities and her yearnings to transcend them will give present-day women much to ponder. A timeless work flawlessly presented.” —AudioFile

Jane Eyre, the plain yet spirited governess, introduced a new kind of heroine to literature: one whose virtuous integrity, sharp intellect, and tireless perseverance broke through class barriers to win equal stature with the man she loved. Orphaned and subject to a cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and loves Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage are elements in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society. Hailed by William Makepeace Thackeray as “the masterwork of a great genius,” this impassioned love story is still regarded, over a century after it first appeared, as one of the finest novels in literature.

About the Author: Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) grew up in the isolated parsonage at Haworth, Yorkshire, where her father was curate. She and her sisters Emily and Anne thrived in fantasy worlds that drew on their voracious reading of Shakespeare, Romantic, and Gothic Fiction. Charlotte was employed as a teacher and a governess before she began writing with her sisters. The Professor, her first novel, was rejected for publication until 1857, although Jane Eyre, published in 1847 under a pseudonym, achieved great success.