Charlotte Brontë was born on 21st December 1816 in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. She was the eldest daughter of Patrick Brontë and his wife (and Charlotte’s mother) Maria Branwell. Despite her father's ongoing mental illness and his attempt to end her education when she was little more than a child, Charlotte managed to attend local schools and receive private tuition from a governess. At the age of seventeen, she accepted an offer of employment as assistant teacher of French at Lowood school, near Huddersfield.
The following year, Charlotte met the young teacher's assistant Arthur Bell Nicholls (1814–1846), who had recently left school
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They began courting, but Nicholls' tuberculosis began to take its toll on their relationship.
After Nicholls' death in 1845, Charlotte moved back to the Bronte family home at Haworth with her mother and sisters Emily and Anne. She worked on new material for her collection of stories which had been rejected by several publisher; these new works included Jane Eyre (1847), Villette (1853) and The Professor (1857). Charlotte married fellow writer Branwell Brontë in 1846, but after his death in November 1848 she lived alone until her own death on 31st January 1855.