Head to Head: Charlotte Bronte vs. Jane Austen

Who do you prefer?  Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen?  Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice?

Below is a comparison of the two prominent authors life and major novels.  You Decide!                        

                                    Charlotte Bronte                       Jane Austen

                                                  

                                                  

Life                              1816 – 1855 (38)                     1775 - 1817 (41)

Place of Birth              Thornton, Yorkshire, UK          Steventon, Hampshire, UK

Family                           Curator                                    Rector, Landed gentry

Marital Status               Married 1854                           Died Unmarried

Cause of Death            Tuberculosis?                           Hodgkin’s lymphoma?

Famous Novel              Jane Eyre                                 Pride & Prejudice

Opening Line      "There was no possibility     "It is a truth universally acknowledged,
                             of taking a walk that day"       that a single man in possession of a
                                                                          good fortune, must be in want of a wife"

Publication Date           1847                                        1813

Novel genre                  Bildungsroman                         Comedy of manners, satire

Novel style                   First person narrative                Free Indirect Speech

Reception                    Success, favorable reviews      Few reviews, favorable

Pen Name                  Currer Bell                                 “By a Lady”

Siblings                      Maria – died 11                         Cassandra Elizabeth – died 72

Elizabeth – died 10                   6 Brothers

Branwell – died 31

Emily – died 30           

                                    Anne – died 29

Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen; “The Passions are perfectly unknown to her … even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition.” 

Charlotte Bronte wrote that Pride and Prejudice was a disappointment, "a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses."