Technical Features

Abstract

The last century was a flourishing period for the novel, with many great books written in a wide variety of styles. Even so, the ‘strand’ that particularly stands out is the ‘novel of manners’, in which realistically rendered characters are set in a closely observed society. Jane Austen (1775–1817) and George Eliot (1819–1890) are good examples. The brilliant realism of these novels makes it easy to ‘live’ in their alien worlds, as if an inhabitant. Jane Eyre is such a novel in that it too creates a captivating world, but it is also true to say that Charlotte Brontë was not altogether happy with this style of novel writing.