Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë are three of the most remarkable novelists and poets of the nineteenth century. Charlotte was the most prolific of the three: Jane Eyre, the story of a governess's triumph over her lowly station in life; Shirley, set in Yorkshire at the time of the Luddite riots at the end of the Napoleonic war; and Villette, based on her experiences as a teacher in Belgium. The Professor, Charlotte's first novel, was published after her death. Anne Brontë was the author of Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights portrays the sinister Heathcliff and his love for Catherine Earnshaw.
The landscape illustrations are by Jack Hewer, while the remainder are by B. S. Grieg.